The Gentleman In The Parlour

♦

Viceregal Library.
Date ^

XKLE GEIsTTEElVf: A3Sr
IISF XHE XARLOUR

W- SOMEHSET -MA-TTGUAM:

THE GENTLEMAN
IN THE PARLOUR

A

RECORD OF
A JOURKEY FROM
RANGOON TO HAIPHONG

Bj,

W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

LONDON

WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD.

FIRS'! PUBr.XSHEI> T93O

PRINXEI? ITsT OREAX BRiXAlISr AX
THE 'W'lNOMXLI. PRESS, KrNGSWOOI>
SURREY

THE GENTLEMAN
IN THE PARLOUR

I

I HAVE never been able to feel for Charles Lamb the
affection that he inspires in most of his readers.
There is a cross grain in my nature that makes me
resent the transports of others and gush will dry up in
me (against my will, for heaven knows I have no wish to
chill by my coldness the enthusiasm of my neighbours)
the capacity of admiration. Too many critics have
written of Charles Lamb with insipidity for me ever to
have been able to read him without uneasiness. He is
like one of those persons of overflowing heart who seem
to lie in wait for disaster to befall you so that they may
envelope you with their sympathy. Their arms are so
quickly outstretched to raise you when you fall that you
cannot help asking yourself, as you rub your barked shin,
whether by any chance they did not put in your path the
stone that tripped you up. I am afraid of people with
too much charm. They devour you. In the end you
are made a sacrifice to the exercise of their fascinating
gift and their insincerity. Nor do I much care for
writers whose charm is their chief asset. It is not
enough. I want something to get my teeth into, and
when I ask for roast beef and Yorkshire pudding I am

X

2

dissatisfied to be given bread and milk. I am put out of
countenance hj the sensibility of the Gentle Elia . For a
generation Rousseau had pinned every writer’s heart to
his sleeve and it was in his day still the fashion to write
with a lump in the throat, but Lamb’s emotion to my mind
too often suggests the facile lachrymosity of the alcoholic.
I cannot but think his tenderness would have been
advantageously tempered by abstinence, a blue pill and a
black draught. Of course when you read the references
made to him by his contemporaries, you discover that the
Gentle Elia is an invention of the sentimentalists. He
was a more robust, irascible and intemperate fellow
than they have made him out, and he would have laughed
(and with justice) at the portrait they have painted of
him. If you had met him one evening at Benjamin
Hayden’s, you would have seen a grubby little person,
somewhat the worse for liquor, who could be very dull,
and if he made a joke it might as easily have been a bad
as a good one. In fact, you would have met Charles
Lamb and not the Gentle Elia. And if you had read
that morning one of his essays in The London Magazine
you would have thought it an agreeable trifle. It would
never have occurred to you that this pleasant piece
would serve one day as a pretext for the lucubrations
of the learned. You would have read it in the right
spirit ; for to you it would have been a living thing. It
is one of the misfortunes to which the writer is subject
that he is too Httle praised when he is alive and too much
when he is dead. The critics force us to read the classics
as MachiavelU wrote, in Court dress ; whereas we
should do much better to read them, as though they were
our contemporaries, in a dressing-gown.

And because I had read Lamb in deference to common
opinion rather than from inclination I had forborne to
read Hazlitt at all. What with the innumerable books
it urgently imported me to read, I came to the conclusion
that I could afford to neglect a writer who had but done
mediocrely (I understood) what another had done with
excellence. And the Gentle Elia bored me. It was
seldom I had read anything about Lamb without coming
across a fling and a sneer at Hazlitt. I knew that
FitzGerald had once intended to write a life of him, but
had given up the proj ect in disgust of his character. He
was a mean, savage, nasty little man and an unworthy
hanger-on of the circle in which Lamb, Keats, Shelley,
Coleridge and Wordsworth shone with so bright a lustre*
There seemed no need to waste my time on a writer of so
little talent and of so unpleasant a nature. But one day,
about to start on a long journey, I was wandering round
Bumpus’s looking for books to take with me when I came
across a selection of Hazlitt’s Essays- It was an
agreeable b’ttle volume in a green cover, and nicely
printed, cheap in price and light to hold, and out of
curiosity to know the truth about an author of whom I
had read so much ill, I put it on the pile that I had
abeady collected.

#

II

WrHEN I had settled down on the boat that was
taking me up the Irrawaddy to Pagan I got the
little green volume out of my bag to read on
the way. The boat was crowded with natives. They lay
about on their beds surrounded by a great many small
pieces of luggage and ate and gossiped all day long.
There were among them a number of monks in yellow
robes, their heads shaven, and they smoked cheroots in
silence. Occasionally one passed a raft of teak-logs,
with a little thatched house on it, going down-stream to
Rangoon, and caught a brief glimpse of the family that
lived on it busy with the preparation of a meal or cosily
eating it. It looked a placid life that they led, with long
hours of repose and ample leisure for the exercise of an
idle curiosity. The river was broad and muddy, and its
banks were flat. Now and then one saw a pagoda,
sometimes spick and span and white, but more often
crumbling to pieces ; and now and then one came to a
riverside village nestling amiably among great green
trees. On the landing-stage was a dense throng of
noisy, gesticulating people in bright dresses and they
looked like flowers on a stall in a market-place ; there
was a turmoil and a confusion, shouting, a hurry and
scurry as a mass of little people, laden with their
belongings, got off, and another mass of little people,
laden too, got on.

4

5

River travelling is monotonous and soothing. In
whatever part of the world you are it is the same. No
responsibility rests on your shoulders. Life is easy.
The long day is divided into neat parts by the meals and
you very soon acquire a sense that you have no longer an
individuality ; you are a passenger occupying a certain
berth and the statistics of the company show that you
have occupied that berth at this season for a certain
number of years and wiU continue to do so long enough
to make the company’s shares a sound investment.

I began to read my Hazlitt. I was astonished. I
found a solid writer, without pretentiousness, courageous
to speak his mind, sensible and plain, with a passion for
the arts that was neither gushing nor forced, various,
interested in the life about him, ingenious, sufficiently
profound for his purposes, but with no affectation
of profundity, humorous, sensitive. And I liked his
English. It was natural and racy, eloquent when
eloquence was needed, easy to read, clear and
succinct, neither below the weight of his matter nor
with fine phrases trying to give it a specious impor-
tance. If art is nature seen through the medium of
a personality, Hazlitt is a great artist.

I was enraptured. I could not forgive myself that I
had lived so long without reading him and I raged
against the idolaters of Elia whose foolishness had
deprived me till now of so vivid an experience. Here
certainly was no charm, but what a robust mind, sane,
clear-cut and vivacious, and what vigour I Presently I
came across the rich essay which is entitled On Going A
Journey and I reached the passage that runs : “ Oh !
it is great to shake off the tranunels of the world and

of public opinion — ^to lose our importunate, tormenting,
everlasting personal identity in the elements of nature,
and become the creature of the moment, clear of all ties
— ^to hold to the universe only by a dish of sweet-breads,
and to owe nothing but the score of the evening — and no
longer seeking for applause and meeting with contempt,
to be known by no other title than The Gentleman in the
Parlour ! *’ I could wish that Hazlitt had used fewer
dashes in this passage. There is in the dash something
rough, ready and haphazard that goes against my grain.
I have seldom read a sentence in which it could not be
well replaced by the elegant semi-colon or the discreet
bracket. But I had no sooner read these words than it
occurred to me that here was an admirable name for a
book of travel and I made up my mind to write it.

Ill

I LET the book fall to my knees and looked at the
river flowing silently. The Immense volume of slow
mo\ing water gave me an exquisite sensation of
inviolate peace. The night fell softly as a green leaf in
summer falls softly to the ground. But trying for a
moment to fight against the pleasant idleness of spirit
that stole over me, I sorted in my memory the im-
pressions that Eangoon had left on me.

It was a gay and sunny morning when the ship that
I had taken at Colombo steamed up the Irrawaddy. They
pointed out to me the tall chimneys of the Burmah Oil
Company and the air was grey and misty with their
smoke. But behind the smoke rose the golden spire of
the Shwe Dagon. And now I found that my recollec-
tions were entirely pleasing, but nebulous ; a cordial
welcome, a drive in an American car through busy
streets of business houses, concrete and iron like the
streets, good heavens ! of Honolulu, Shanghai, Singapore
or Alexandria, and then a spacious, shady house in a
garden; an agreeable life, luncheon at this club or
that, drives along trim, wide roads, bridge ajfter dark
at that club or Jthis, gin pakitSy a great many men
in white drill or pongee silk, laughter, pleasant con-
versation ; and then back through the night to dress for
dinner and out again to dine with this hospitable host or
the other, cocktails, a substantial meal, dancing to a
gramophone, or a game of billiards and then back once
more to the large cool silent house It was very

7

B

8

attractive, easj, comfortable and g&y; but was this
Rangoon ? Down by the harbour and along the river
were narrow streets, a rabbit warren of intersecting
alleys ; and here, multitudinous, lived the Chinese, and
there the Burmans : I looked with curious eyes as I
passed in my motor-car and wondered what strange
things I should discover and what secrets they had to tell
me if I could plunge into that enigmatic life and lose
myself in it as a cup of water thrown overboard is lost in
the Irrawaddy. Rangoon. And now I found that in
my recollections, so vague and uncertain, the Shwe
Dagon rose superb as on that first morning it had risen,
glistening with its gold, like a sudden hope in the dark
night of the soul of which the mystics write, glistening
against the fog and smoke of the thriving city.

A Burmese gentleman having asked me to dine with
him, I went to his office whither I was bidden. It was
gaily decorated with streamers of paper flowers. A
large round table stood in the middle. I was introduced
to a number of his friends and we sat down. There
were a great many courses, most of which were rather
cold, and the food, served in little bowls, swam in copious
sauces. Round the centre of the table were bowls of
Chinese tea, but champagne flowed freely, too freely,
and after dinner liqueurs of all kinds were passed round.
We were all very jolly. Then the table was taken away
and the chairs were put against the wall. My amiable
host asked for permission to bring in his wife, and she
came with a fnend, two pretty little women with large,
smiling eyes, and sat down shyly ; but they soon found
the position on European chairs uncomfortable and so
sat with their legs under them as though they were

9

sitting on the floor An entertainment had been pro-
vided for my diversion and the performers made their
entrance. Two clowns, an orchestra and half a dozen
dancers. One of them, they told me, was an artist
celebrated through all Burmah. The dancers wore silk
shirts and tight jackets, and they had flowers in their
dark hair. They sang in a loud, forced voice so that the
veins of their necks swelled with the effort, and they
danced not together, but in turn, and their gestures were
like the gestures of marionettes. Meanwhile the clowns
uttered their merry quips ; back and forth went the
dialogue between them and the dancers, and it was
evidently of a facetious character, for my host and his
guests laughed loudly.

For some time I had been watching the star. She
certainly had an air. She stood with her companions
but with an effect of being apart from them, and on her
face she wore a good-humoured, but faintly supercilious
smile, as though she belonged to another sphere.
When the clowns attacked her with their gibes she
answered them with a smiling detachment ; she was
playing her part in a rite as became her, but she
proposed to give nothing of herself. She had the
aloofness of complete self-confidence. Then her moment
came. She stepped forward. She forgot that she was
a star and became an actress.

But I had been expressing regret to my neighbours
that I must leave Rangoon without seeing the Shwe
Dagon ; for the Burmese had made certain regulations,
wliich the Buddhist faith did not demand, but to comply
with which was humiliating to the occidental ; and to
humiliate the occidental was the object of the regula-

10

tions. No Europeans any longer went into the wat-
houses. But it is a stately pile and the most venerable
place of worship in the country. It enshrines eight
hairs from the head of the Buddha. My Burmese
friends offered now to take me and I put my Western
pride in my pocket. It was midnight. Arriving at the
temple we went up a long stairway on each side of
which were booths ; but the people who lived in them to
sell the devout what they might require had finished
their work and some were sitting about, half naked,
chatting in undertones, smoking or eating a final meal,
while many in all attitudes of abandonment were asleep,
some on low native beds and some on the bare stones.
Here and there, left over from the day before, were
masses of dying flowers, lotus and jasmine and marigold ;
they scented the air heavily with a perfume in which
was already an acrid decay. At last we reached the
great terrace. AU about shrines and pagodas were
jumbled pell-mell with the confusion with which trees
grow in the jungle. They had been built without
design or symmetry, but in the darkness, their gold
and marble faintly gleaming, they had a fantastic
richness. And then, emerging from among them like a
great ship surrounded by lighters, rose dim, severe and
splendid, the Shwe Dagon. Lamps illumined with a
sober glow the gilt with which it was covered. It
towered, aloof, impressive and mysterious against the
night. A guardian walked noiselessly on his naked feet,
an old man was lighting a row of candles before an
image of the Buddha ; they gave an emphasis to the
solitude. Here and there a yellow-robed monk muttered
a husky invocation ; his droning punctuated the silence

4

IV

So that the reader of these pages may be under no
misapprehension I hasten to tell him that he will
find in them little information. This book is the
record of a journey through Burmah, the Shan States,
Siam and Indo-China. I am writing it for my own
diversion and I hope that it will divert also such as care
to spend a few hours in reading it. I am a professional
writer and I hope to get from it a certain amoimt of
money and perhaps a little praise.

Though I have travelled much I am a bad traveller.
The good traveller has the gift of surprise. He is
perpetually interested by the differences he finds
between what he knows at home and what he sees
abroad. If he has a keen sense of the absurd he finds
constant matter for laughter in the fact that the people
among whom he is do not wear the same clothes as
he does, and he can never get over his astonishment
that men may eat with chop-sticks instead of forks or
write with a brush instead of with a pen. Since
everything is strange to him he notices everything,
and according to his humour can be amusing or
instructive. But I take things for granted so quickly
that I cease to see anything unusual in my new sur-
roundings. It seems to me so obvious for the Burman
to wear a coloured paso that only by a deliberate effort
can I make the observation that he is not dressed

II

If

as I am. It seems to me just as natural to ride in a
rickshaw as in a car, and to sit on the floor as on a
chair, so that I forget that I am doing something odd
and out-of-the-way. I travel because I like to move
from place to place, I enjoy the sense of freedom it
gives me, it pleases me to be rid of ties, responsibilities,
duties, I like the unknown ; I meet odd people who
amuse me for a moment and sometimes suggest a theme
for a composition ; I am often tired of myself and I
have a notion that by travel I can add to my personality
and so change myself a little. I do not bring back
from a journey quite the same self that I took.

It is true that should the historian of the Decline
and Fall of the British Empire come across this book
on the shelves of some public library he will have hard
things to say of me. How can one explain,” he will
ask, “ that this writer who in other places showed that
he was not devoid of observation, could have gone
through so many parts of this Empire and not noticed
(for by never a word is it apparent that a suspicion of
anything of the sort crossed his mind) with what a
nerveless hand the British held the power that their
fathers had conquered? A satirist in his day, was
there no matter for his derision in the spectacle of a
horde of officials who held their positions only by force
of the guns behind them trying to persuade the races
they ruled that they were there only on sufferance ?
They offered efficiency to people to whom a hundred
other things were of more consequence and sought to
justify themselves by the benefits they conferred on
people who did not want them. As if a man in whose
house you have forcibly quartered yourself will welcome

IS

you any the more because you tell him you can run it
better than he can ! Did he go through Burmah and
not see how the British power was tottering because the
masters were afraid to rule, did he not meet judges,
soldiers, commissioners who had no confidence in them-
selves and therefore inspired no respect in those they
were placed over ? What had happened to the race
that had produced Clive, Warren Hastings and Stamford
Raffles that it must send out to govern its colonies men
who were afraid of the authority entrusted to them,
men who thought to rule the Oriental by cajolery and
submissiveness, by being unobtrusive, by pocketing
afironts and giving the natives powers they were unfit
to use and must inevitably turn against their masters.
But what is a master whose conscience is troubled
because he is a master ? They prated of efficiency and
they did not rxile efficiently, for they were filled with
an xmeasy feeling that they were unfit to rule. They
were sentimentalists. They wanted the profits of
Empire, but would not assume the greatest of its
responsibilities, which is power. But all this, w^hich
was staring him in the face, seems to have escaped this
writer, and he contented himself with jotting down
little incidents of travel, describing his emotions and
inventing little stories about the persons he met ; he
produced a book that can be of no value to the
historian, the political economist or the philosopher :
it is deservedly forgotten.”

I cock a snook at the historian of the Decline and
Fall of the British Empire, On my side I venture to
express the wish that when the time comes for him
to write this great work he will write it with sympathy,

justice and magnanimity. I would have him eschew
rhetoric, but I do not think a restrained emotion would
ill become him. I would have him write lucidly and
yet with dignity ; I would have his periods march with
a firm step. I should like his sentences to ring out
as the anvil rings when the hammer strikes it ; his
style should be stately but not pompous, picturesque
without affectation or effort, lapidary, eloquent and yet
sober ; for when all is said and done he will have a
subject upon which he may well expend all his pains :
the British Empire will have been in the world’s history
a moment not without grandeur.

V

Alight rain was falling and the sky was dark
with heavy clouds when I reached Pagan. In
the distance I saw the pagodas for which it is
renowned. They loomed, huge, remote and mysterious,
out of the mist of the early morning like the vague
recollections of a fantastic dream. The river steamer
set me down at a bedraggled village some miles firom
my destination, and I waited in the drizzle while my
servant found an ox-waggon to take me on my way.
It was a springless cart on solid wooden wheels, covered
with a cocoanut matting. Inside, it was hot and
breathless, but the rain had increased to a steady
downpour and I was thankfiil for its shelter. I lay full
length and when I was tired of this sat cross-legged.
The oxen went at a snaiTs pace, with cautious steps,
and I was shaken and jolted as they ploughed their
way through the tracks made by the carts that had gone
before, and every now and then I was given a terrific
jerk as the cart passed over a great stone. When I
reached the circuit-house I felt as though I had been
beaten and pummelled.

The circuit-house stood on the river bank, quite close
to the water, and all round it were great trees, tamarinds,
banyans and wild gooseberries. A flight of wooden
steps led to a broad verandah, which served as a living-
room, and behind this were a couple of bedrooms, each

15

16

with a bath-room. I found that one of these was
occupied by another traveller, and I had but just
examined the accommodation and talked to the
Madrassi in charge about meals and taken stock of
what pickles and canned goods and liquor he had on
the premises when a little man appeared in a mackintosh
and a topee dripping with rain. He took off his soaking
things and presently we sat down to the meal known
in this country as brunch. It appeared that he was
a Czecho-Slovak, employed by a firm of exporters in
Calcutta, and was spending his holiday seeing the sights
of Burmah. He was a short man with wild black hair,
a large face, a bold hooked nose and gold-rimmed
spectacles. His stingah-shiffcer fitted tightly over a
corpulent figure. He was evidently an active and an
energetic sight-seer ; for the rain had not prevented
him from going out in the morning and he told me
that he had visited no less than seven pagodas. But
the rain stopped while we were eating and soon the
sun shone brightly. We had no sooner finished than
he set out again I do not know how many pagodas
there are at Pagan ; when you stand on an eminence
they surround you as far as the eye can reach. They
are almost as thickly strewn as the tombstones in a
cemetery. They are of all sizes and in all states of
preservation. Their solidity and size and magnificence
are the more striking by reason of their surroundings,
for they alone remain to show that here a vast and
populous city once flourished. To-day there is only a
straggling village with broad untidy roads lined with
great trees, a pleasant enough little place with matting
houses, neat and trim, in which live the workers in

If

lacquer ; for this is the industry on which Pagan,
forgetful of its ancient greatness, now modestly thrives-

But of all these pagodas only one, the Ananda, is still
a place of pilgrimage. Here are four huge gilded
Buddhas standing against a gilded wall in a lofty
gilded chamber. You look at them one by one through
a gilded archway. In that glowing dimness they are
inscrutable. In front of one a mendicant in his yellow
robe chants in a high-pitched voice some litany that
you do not understand. But the other pagodas are
deserted. Grass grows in the chinks of the pavement
and yoimg trees have taken root in the crannies. They
are the refuge of birds. Hawks wheel about their
summits and little green parrots chatter in the eaves.
They are like bizarre and monstrous flowers turned to
stone. There is one in which the architect has taken
as his model the lotus, as the architect of St. John's,
Smith Square, took Queen Anne's footstool, and it has
a baroque extravagance that makes the Jesuit churches
in Spain seem severe and classical. It is preposterous,
so that it makes you smile to look at it, but its exuber-
ance is captivating. It is quite unreal, shoddy but
strange, and you are staggered at the fantasy that
could ever have devised it. It looks hke the fabric of
a single night made by the swarming hands of one
of those wayward gods of the Indian mythology.
Within the pagodas images of the Buddha sit in medi-
tation. The gold leaf has long since worn away from
the colossal figures and the figures are crumbling to
dust. The fantastic lions that guard the entrance ways
are rotting on their pedestals.

A strange and melancholy spot. But my curiosity

18

was satisfied with a visit to half-a-dozen of the pagodas,
and I would not let the vigour of my Czecho-Slovak be
a reproach to my indolence. He divided them into
various types and marked them down in his notebook
according to their peculiarities. He had theories about
them, and in his mind they were neatly ticketed to
support a theory or clinch an argument. None was
so ruined that he did not think it worth while to give
it his close and enthusiastic attention, and to examine
the make and shape of tiles he climbed up broken places
like a mountain goat. I preferred to sit idly on the
verandah of the circuit-house and watch the scene
before me. In the full tide of noon the sun burned all
the colour from the landscape so that the trees and
the dwarf scrub that grew wildly where in time past
were the busy haunts of men, were pale and grey ; but
with the declining day the colour crept back, like an
emotion that tempers the character and has been sub-
merged for a while by the affairs of the world, and
trees and scrub were again a sumptuous and living
green. The sun set on the other side of the river and
a red cloud in the west was reflected on the tranquil
bosom of the Irrawaddy. There was not a ripple on
the water. The river seemed no longer to flow. In
the distance a solitary fisherman in a dug-out pHed
his craft. A little to one side but in full view was one
of the loveliest of the pagodas. In the setting sun its
colours, cream and fawn-grey, were soft like the silk
of old dresses in a museum. It had a symmetry that
was grateful to the eye ; the turrets at one comer
were repeated by the turrets at every other ; and the
flamboyant windows repeated the flamboyant doors

19

below. The decoration had a sort of bold violence, as
though it sought to scale fantastic pinnacles of the
spirit and in the desperate struggle, with life and soul
engaged, could not concern itself with reticence or
good taste. But withal it had at that moment a kind
of majesty and there was majesty in the solitude in
which it stood. It seemed to weigh upon the earth
with too great a burden. It was impressive to reflect
that it had stood for so many centuries and looked down
impassively upon the smiling bend of the Irrawaddy.
The birds were singing noisily in the trees ; the crickets
chirped and the frogs croaked, croaked, croaked.
Somewhere a boy was whistling a melancholy tune on
a rude pipe and in the compound the natives were
chattering loudly. There is no silence in the East.

It was at this hour that the Czecho-Slovak returned
to the circuit-house. He was very hot and dusty, tired
but happy, for he had missed nothing. He was a mine
of information. The night began gradually to enfold
the pagoda and it looked now unsubstantial, as though
it were built of lath and plaster, so that you would not
have been surprised to see it at the Paris exhibition
housing a display of colonial produce. It was a strangely
sophisticated building in that exquisitely rural scene.
But the Czecho-Slovak told me when it was built and
under what king, and then, gathering way, began to
teU me something of the history of Pagan. He had a
retentive memory. He marshalled his facts with
precision and delivered them with the fluency of a
lecturer delivering a lecture he has repeated too often.
But I did not want to know the facts he gave me. What
did it matter to me what kings reigned there, what

battles they fought and what lands they conquered ?
I was content to see them as a low relief on a temple
wall in a long procession, with their hieratic attitudes,
seated on a throne and receiving gifts from the envoys
of subjugated nations, or else, with a confusion of
spears, in the hurry and skelter of chariots, in the
turmoil of battle. I asked the Czecho-Slovak what he
was going to do with all the information he had acquired.

** Do ? Nothing,” he replied. ” I like facts. I want
to know things. Whenever I go anywhere I read
everything about it that has been written. I study its
history, the fauna and flora, the manners and customs
of the people, I make myself thoroughly acquainted
with its art and literature. I could write a standard
book on every country I have visited. I am a mine of
information.”

** That is just what I was saying to myself. But
what is the good of information that means nothing
to you ? Information for its own sake is like a flight
.of steps that leads to a blank wall.”

” I do not agree with you. Information for its own
sake is like a pin you pick up and put in the lapel
of your coat or the piece of string that you untie instead
of cutting and put away in a drawer. You never know
when it will be useful.”

And to show me that he did not choose his metaphors
at random the Czecho-Slovak turned up the bottom of
his stingah-shifter (which has no lapel) and showed me
four pins in a neat row

VI

FEOM Pagan, Tvisbing to go to Mandalay, I took
the steamer once more, and a couple of days
before I arrived there, the boat tying up at a
riverside village, I made up my mind to go ashore.
The skipper told me that there was there a pleasant
little club in which I had only to make myself at home ;
they were quite used to having strangers drop off like
that from the steamer, and the secretary was a very
decent chap ; I might even get a game of bridge, I
had nothing in the world to do, so I got into one of
the bullock-carts that were waiting at the landing-stage
and was driven to the club. There was a man sitting
on the verandah and as I walked up he nodded to me
and asked whether I would have a whisky and soda
or a gin and bitters. The possibility that I would have
nothing at all did not even occur to him. I chose the
longer drink and sat down. He was a tall, thin, bronzed
man, with a big moustache, and he wore khaki shorts
and a khaki shirt. I never knew his name, but when
we had been chatting a little while another man came
in who told me he was the secretary, and he addressed
my friend as George.

Have you heard from your wife yet V* he asked him.
The other's eyes brightened.

Yes, I had letters by this mail. She's having no
end of a time."

zi

22

“ Did she tell you not to fret ? "

George gave a little chuckle, but was I mistaken in
thinking that there was in it the shadow of a sob ?

In point of fact she did. But that’s easier said
than done. Of course I know she wants a holiday,
and I’m glad she should have it, but it’s devilish hard
on a chap.” He turned to me. ” You see, this is the
first time I’ve ever been separated from my missus,
and I’m like a lost dog without her.”

” How long have you been married ? ”

” Five minutes.”

The secretary of the club laughed.

” Don’t be a fool, George. You’ve been married
eight years.”

After we had talked for a little George, looking at his
watch, said he must go and change his clothes for dinner
and left us. The secretary watched him disappear into
the night with a smile of not unkindly irony.

” We all ask him as much as we can now that he’s
alone,” he told me. ” He mopes so terribly since his
wife went home.”

” It must be very pleasant for her to know that her
husband is as devoted to her as all that.”

” Mabel is a remarkable woman.”

He called the boy and ordered more drinks. In this
hospitable place they did not ask you if you would
have anything; they took it for granted. Then he
settled himself in his long chair and lit a cheroot. He
told me the story of George and Mabel.

They became engaged when he was home on leave,
and when he returned to Burmah it was arranged that
she should join him in six months. But one difficulty

cropped up after another ; Mabel’s father died, the
war came, George was sent to a district unsuitable
for a white woman ; so that in the end it was seven
years before she was able to start. He made all
arrangements for the marriage, which w'as to take place
on the day of her arrival, and went down to Rangoon
to meet her. On the morning on which the ship was
due he borrowed a motor-car and drove along to the
dock- He paced the quay.

Then, suddenly, without warning, his nerve failed
him. He had not seen Mabel for seven years. He
had forgotten what she was like. She was a total
stranger. He felt a terrible sinking in the pit of his
stomach and his knees began to wobble. He couldn’t
go through with it. He must tell Mabel that he was
very sorry, but he couldn’t, he really couldn’t marry
her. But how could a man tell a girl a thing like that
when she had been engaged to him for seven years
and had come six thousand miles to marry him ? He
hadn’t the nerve for that either. George was seized
with the courage of despair. There was a boat at the
quay on the very point of starting for Singapore ; he
wrote a hurried letter to Mabel, and without a stick
of luggage, just in the clothes he stood up in, leaped on
board.

The letter Mabel received ran somewhat as follows :

Dearest Mabel, I have been suddenly called away on
business and do not know when I shall he hack, I think
it would be much wiser if you returned to England. My
plans are very uncertain. Your loving George.

But when he arrived at Singapore he foimd a cable
waiting for him.

C

24

Quite understand, Dont worry. Love, Mabel,

Terror made him quick-witted.

By Jove, I believe she’s following me,” he said.

He telegraphed to the shipping-office at Rangoon
and sure enough her name was on the passenger list
of the ship that was now on its way to Singapore.
There was not a moment to lose. He jumped on the
train to Bangkok. But he was uneasy ; she would
have no difficulty in finding out that he had gone to
Bangkok and it was just as simple for her to take the
train as it had been for him. Fortunately there was a
French tramp sailing next day for Saigon. He took it.
At Saigon he would be safe ; it would never occur
to her that he had gone there ; and if it did, surely
by now she would have taken the hint. It is five days
journey from Bangkok to Saigon and the boat is dirty,
cramped and uncomfortable. He was glad to arrive
and took a rickshaw to the hotel. He signed his name
in the visitors’ book and a telegram was immediately
handed to him. It contained but two words : Love,
Mabel, They were enough to make him break into a
cold sweat.

“ When is the next boat for Hong-Kong ? ” he
asked.

Now his flight grew serious. He sailed to Hong-
Kong, but dared not stay there ; he went to Manila ;
Manila was ominous ; he went on to Shanghai : Shanghai
was nerve-racking ; every time he went out of the
hotel he expected to run straight into Mabel’s arms ;
no, Shanghai would never do. The only thing was to
go to Yokohama. At the Grand Hotel at Yokohama
a cable awaited him.

25

“ So sorry to have missed you at Manila. Lme. Mabel
He scanned the shipping intelligence with a fevered
brow. Where was she now ? He doubled back to
Shanghai. This time he went straight to the club and
asked for a telegram. It was handed to him.

“ Arriving shortly. Love. MaheV'

No, no, he was not so easy to catch as all that. He
had already made his plans. The Yangtze is a long
river and the Yangtze was falling. He could just about
catch the last steamer that could get up to Chungking
and then no one could travel till the following spring
except by junk. Such a j oumey was out of the question
for a woman alone. He went to Hankow and from
Hankow to Ichang, he changed boats here and from
Ichang through the rapids went to Chungking. But
he was desperate now, he was not going to take any
risks : there was a place called Cheng-tu, the capital
of Szechuan, and it was four hundred miles away. It
could only be reached by road, and the road was
infested with brigands. A man would be safe there.

George collected chair-bearers and coolies and set
out. It was with a sigh of relief that he saw at last
the crenellated walls of the lonely Chinese city. From
those walls at sunset you could see the snowy mountains
of Tibet.

He could rest at last : Mabel would never find him
there. The Consul happened to be a fiiend of his and
he stayed with him. He enjoyed the comfort of a
luxurious house, he enjoyed his idleness after that
strenuous escape across Asia, and above all he enjoyed
his divine security. The weeks passed lazily one after
the other.

26

One morning George and the Consul were in the
courtyard looking at some curios that a Chinese had
brought for their inspection when there was a loud
knocking at the great door of the Consulate. The
doorman flung it open. A chair borne by foxir coolies
entered, advanced, and was set down. Mabel stepped
out. She was neat and cool and fresh. There was
nothing in her appearance to suggest that she had just
come in after a fortnight on the road. George was
petrified. He was as pale as death. She went up to
him.

“ Hulloa, George, I was so afiraid I*d missed you
again.*’

Hulloa, Mabel,” he faltered.

He did not know what to say. He looked this way
and that : she stood between him and the doorway.
She looked at him with a smile in her blue eyes.

” You haven’t altered at all,” she said. ” Men can
go off so dreadfully in seven years and I was afraid
you’d got fat and bald. I’ve been so nervous. It
would have been terrible if after all these years I simply
hadn’t been able to bring myself to marry you after all.”

She turned to George’s host-

” Are you the Consul ? ” she asked.

1 am.

” That’s all right. I’m ready to marry him as soon
as I’ve had a bath.”

And she did.

First of all Mandalay is a name. For there are
places whose names from some accident of
history or happy association have an independent
magic and perhaps the wise man would never visit
them, for the expectations they arouse can hardly be
realised. Names have a life of their own, and though
Trebizond may be nothing but a poverty-stricken
village the glamour of its name must invest it for all
right-thinking minds with the trappings of Empire ;
and Samarkand : can anyone write the word without
a quickening of the pulse and at his heart the pain of
unsatisfied desire. The very name of the Irrawaddy
informs the sensitive fancy with its vast and turbid
flow. The streets of Mandalay, dusty, crowded and
drenched with a garish sun, are broad and straight.
Tram-cars lumber down them wdth a rout of passengers ;
they fill the seats and gangways and cling thickly to
the footboard hke flies clustered upon an over-ripe
mango. The houses, with their balconies and verandahs,
have the slatternly look of the houses in the Main
Street of a Western town that has fallen upon evil
days. Here are no narrow alleys nor devious ways
down which the imagination may wander in search of
the unimaginable. It does not matter : Mandalay has
its name ; the falling cadence of the lovely word has
gathered about itself the chiaroscuro of romance.

But Mandalay has also its fort. The fort is sur-
rounded by a high wall, and the high wall by a moat.
In the fort stands the palace, and stood, before they
were torn down, the offices of King Thebaw s govern-
ment and the dwelling-places of his ministers. At
intervals in the wall are gateways washed white with
lime and each is surmounted by a sort of belvedere,
like a summer-house in a Chinese garden ; and on the
bastions are teak pavilions too fanciful to allow you to
think they could ever have served a warlike purpose.
The wall is made of huge sun-baked bricks and the
colour of it is old rose. At its foot is a broad stretch
of sward planted quite thickly with tamarind, cassia
and acacia ; a flock of brown sheep, advancing with
tenacity, slowly but intently grazes the luscious grass ;
and here in the evening you see the Burmese in their
coloured skirts and bright headkerchiefs wander in
twos and threes. They are little brown men of a solid
and sturdy build, with something a trifle Mongolian
in their faces. They walk deliberately as though they
were owners and tillers of the soil. They have none
of the sidelong grace, the deprecating elegance, of
the Indian who passes them ; they have not his refine-
ment of features, nor his languorous, effeminate dis-
tinction. They smile easily. They are happy, cheerful
and amiable

In the broad water of the moat the rosy wall and the
thick foliage of the trees and the Burmese in their
bright clothes are sharply reflected. The water is still,
but not stagnant, and peace rests upon it like a swan
with a golden crown Its colours, in the early morning
and towards sunset, have the soft fatigued tenderness

of pastel ; they have the translucency \vithout the
stubborn definiteness, of oils. It is as though light
were a prestidigitator and in play laid on colours that
he had just created and were about with a careless hand
to wash them out again. You hold your breath for
you cannot believe that such an effect can be anything
but evanescent . Y ou watch it with the same expectancy
with which you read a poem in some complicated metre
when your ear awaits the long delayed rhyme that will
fulfil the harmony. But at sunset, w'hen the clouds
in the w'est are red and splendid so that the wall, the
trees and the moat are drenched in radiance ; and at
night under the full moon when the white gateways
drip with silver and the belvederes above them are shot
with silhouetted glimpses of the sky, the assault on
your senses is shattering. You try to guard yourself
by sapng it is not real. This is not a beauty that
steals upon you unawares, that flatters and soothes
your bruised spirit, this is not a beauty that you can
hold in your hand and call your own and put in its place
among familiar beauties that you know ; it is a beauty
that batters you and stuns you and leaves you breath-
less, there is no calmness in it nor control, it is like a
fire that on a sudden consumes you and you are left
shaken and bare and yet by a strange miracle alive.

VIII

T^HE palace of Mandalay is built within a great
square, surrounded by a low whitewashed
wall, and you go up to the terrace on which
it stands by an inconsiderable stairway. In old days
this expanse was thickly covered with buildings, but
now many of them, the lodgings of inferior queens and
of maids of honour, have been pulled down and where
they stood are pleasant green spaces.

First then you come upon a long audience chamber,
then a throne room, robing chambers, other throne
rooms and private apartments. On each side of these
are the dwelling-places of the king, the queens and the
princesses. The throne room is a barn, a roof supported
by tall posts, but the posts are great teak trees on which
you can still see the marks of the tools with which
they were rudely shaped, and they are lacquered and
gilt ; the walls are mere planks roughly planed and
they are lacquered and gilt too. The gold is worn and
discoloured. The contrast of this crudeness of work-
manship with all this gilt and lacquer gives, I know
not how, an effect of peculiar magnificence. Each
building, too much like a Swiss chalet, by itself is
unimpressive, but in the mass they have a dark splendour
that takes the fancy. The carving that adorns the
roofs, the balustrades and the partitions between
chamber and chamber, is coarse, but the designs have

31

often grace and a luxiirious elegance. The builders of
the palace in the most unexpected way, by the use of
the most incongruous elements, have achieved a palatial
effect so that you feel that here Oriental monarchs
might fitly dwell. Much of the decoration is obtained
by the use in various patterns of a mosaic of innumerable
little pieces of mirror and of white and brightly coloured
glass : you would have said that nothing could be more
hideous (it reminds you of the kind of thing you saw
on Margate pier in your childhood and took back with
pride after a day’s outing as a present to a dismayed
relation), yet oddly enough the impression is not only
sumptuous but pleasing. So rudely carved are the
screens and partitions on which these artful fragments
of glass are thus inlaid that they have none of the
effect of tinsel, but on their gold ground glitter dimly
with the secret radiance of tarnished gems. This is
not a barbarous art, which has a greater strength and
vitality, a more rugged force, but a savage or if you
like a childlike art ; it is in a way trifling and effeminate
and it is its roughness (as though with uncertain touch
the artists were creating each familiar pattern afresh
from their own heads) that gives it character. You
have a notion of a people fumbling confusedly with the
very beginning of the beautiful and they are charmed
with shining objects as a bushman might be or a child.

The palace now is despoiled of the rich hangings and
the gilded furniture with which it was adorned. You
walk through chamber after chamber and it is like a
house that has been long to let. No one seems to visit
it. Towards evening these gilded, jewelled, deserted
chambers are sombre and ghostly. You wander

32

softly so that you may not disturb the faintly scented
silence. You stand and look at all that emptiness in
amaze and it is incredible that so short a while ago this
was the scene of unimaginable intrigue and of turbulent
passion. For here romance is within the memory of
men still alive. It is not fifty years since this palace
saw incidents as dramatic and to us as remote as
those of the Renaissance in Italy or of Byzantium.
I was taken to see an old lady who in her day had made
history. She was a rather stout, short person, dressed
soberly in black and white, and she looked at me
through gold-rimmed spectacles with quiet, slightly
ironic eyes. Her father, a Greek, had been in the
service of King Mindon and she was appointed maid
of honour to Queen Supalayat. Presently she married
the English captain of one of the king’s river boats,
but he died, and after a decent interval she became
engaged to a Frenchman. (She spoke in a low voice,
with the very faintest trace of a foreign accent ; the
flies buzzing about her did not seem to incommode her,
she held her hands clasped demurely on her lap.) The
Frenchman went home and at Marseilles married one
of his own countrywomen. After so long a time she
did not remember very much about him ; she remem-
bered his name, of course, and she remembered that
he had a very handsome moustache, and that was all.
But then she loved him madly. (When she laughed it
was a little ghostly chuckle as though her mirth were
a shadow and what she laughed at an illusion of the
comic.) She made up her mind to be revenged on him.
She still had her entr6e to the palace. She got hold
of the draft of a treaty that King Thebaw had made

with the French by the terms of w’hich every sphere
of influence in Upper Burma passed into their hands.
She gave it to the Italian Consul to take to the Chief
Commissioner of Lower Burma, and so caused the
English advance on Mandalay and the dethronement
and exile of King Thebaw. Was it not Alexandre
Dumas who said that in the theatre there is nothing
so dramatic as something that is happening behind a
closed door ? The quiet, ironic eyes of that old lady,
behind their gold-rimmed spectacles, were a closed
door, and who could tell what bizarre thoughts, what
a welter of fantastic passions, still dwelt behind them ?
She spoke of Queen Supalayat : she was a very nice
woman, and people had been so unkind about her;
aU those stories of the massacres she had instigated,
stufiF and nonsense !

“ I know for a fact that she did not murder more
than two or three people at the outside.’’ The old
lady faintly shrugged her fat little shoulders. “ Two
or three people ! What is that to make a fuss about ?
Life is cheap.”

I sipped a cup of tea and someone turned on the
gramophone.

IX

Though not an indomitable sight-seer I went
to Amarapura, once the capital of Burma, but
now a straggling village, where the tamarind
trees grow lofty on each side of the road and in their
shade the silk-weavers ply their trade. The tamarind
is a noble tree. Its trunk is rough and gnarled, pale
like the teak logs that have been floating down the
river, and its roots are like great serpents that writhe
upon the earth with a convulsive violence ; but its
foliage is lacy and fern-like, so thick that notwith-
standing the delicacy of the leaves it yields a dense
shade. It is like an old farmer’s wife, full of years,
but rugged and hale, who is clothed incongruously in
fleecy muslins. Green pigeons roost in its branches.
Men and women sit outside their little houses, spinning
or winding the silk on bobbins, and they have soft
friendly eyes. Children play about them and pariah
dogs lie sleeping in the middle of the road. It is a
gently industrious, happy and peaceful life that they
seem to lead, and the thought crosses your mind that
here are people who have found at least one solution
to the mystery of existence.

Then I went to see the great bell at Mengon. Here
is a Buddhist convent and as I stood looking a group
of nuns surrounded me. They wore robes of the same
shape and size as the monks’, but instead of the

34

monks’ fine yellow of a grimy dun. Little old toothless
women, their heads shaven but covered with an inch
of thin grey stubble, and their little old faces deeply
lined and wrinkled. They held out skinny hands for
money and gabbled with bare pale gums. Their dark
eyes were alert with covetousness and their smiles
were mischievous. They were very old and they had
no human ties or afPections. They seemed to look
upon the world with a humorous cynicism. They had
lived through every kind of illusion and held existence
in a malicious and laughing contempt. They had no
tolerance for the follies of men and no indulgence for
their weakness. There was something vaguely frighten-
ing in their entire lack of attachment to human things.
They had done with love, they had finished with the
anguish of separation, death had no terrors for them,
they had nothing left now but laughter. They struck
the great bell so that I might hear its tone ; boom,
boom, it went, a long low note that travelled in slow
reverberations down the river, a solemn sound that
seemed to call the soul from its tenement of clay and
reminded it that though all created things were illusion,
in the illusion was also beauty ; and the nuns, following
the sound, burst into ribald cackles of laughter, hi, hi, hi,
that mocked the call of the great bell. Dupes, their
laughter said, dupes and fools. Laughter is the only
reality.

X

Wf^HEN 1 left Colombo I had no notion of going
to Keng Tung, but on the ship I met a man
who told me he had spent five years there.
He said it had an important market, held every five
days, whither came natives of half a dozen countries
and members of half a hundred tribes. It had pagodas
darkly splendid and a remoteness that liberated the
questing spirit from its anxiety. He said he would
sooner live there than anywhere in the world. I asked
him what it had offered him and he said, contentment.
He was a tall, dark fellow with the aloofness of manner
you often find in those who have lived much alone in
unfrequented places. Men like this are a little restless
in the company of others and though in the smoking-
room of a ship or at the club bar they may be talkative
and convivial, telling their story with the rest, joking
and glad sometimes to narrate their unusual experiences,
■they seem always to hold something back. They have
a life in themselves that they keep apart, and there is
a look in their eyes, as it were turned inwards, that
informs you that this hidden life is the only one that
signifies to them. And now and then their eyes betray
their weariness with the social round into which hazard
or the fear of seeming odd has for a moment forced
them. They seem then to long for the monotonous
solitude of some place of their predilection where they

36

37

can be once more alone with the reality they have
found.

It was as much the manner of this chance acquaintance
as what he told me that persuaded me to make the
journey across the Shan States on which I now set out.
From the rail-head in Upper Burma to the rail-head in
Siam, whence I could get down to Bangkok, it was be-
tween six and seven hundred miles. Kind people had
done everything possible to render the excursion easy
for me and the Resident at Taunggyi had wired to me
that he had made arrangements for mules and ponies
to be ready for me on my arrival. I had bought in
Rangoon such stores as seemed necessary, folding chairs
and a table, a filter, lamps and I know not what. I
took the train from Mandalay to Thazi, intending there
to hire a car for Taunggyi, and a man I had met at
the club at Mandalay and who lived at Thazi asked me
to have brunch (the pleasant meal of Burma that
combines breakfast and lunch) with him before I
started. His name was Masterson. He was a man in
the early thirties, with a pleasant friendly face, curling
dark hair speckled with grey, and handsome dark eyes.
He spoke with a singularly musical voice, very slowly,
and this, I hardly know why, inspired you with confi-
dence. You felt that a man who took such a long
time to say what he had to say and had found the
world with sufiicient leisure to listen to him must have
qualities that made him sympathetic to his fellows.
He took the amiability of mankind for granted and I
suppose he could only have done this because he was
himself amiable. He had a nice sense of humour,
without of course a quick thrust and parry, but agreeably

38

sarcastic ; it was of that ageeable type that applies
commonsense to the accidents of life and so sees them
in a faintly ridiculous aspect. He was engaged in a
business that kept him travelling up and down Burma
most of the year and in his journeyings he had acquired
the collector’s habit. He told me that he spent all
his spare money on buying Burmese curiosities and it
was especially to see them that he asked me to have
a meal with him.

The train got in early in the morning. He had
warned me that, having to be at his office, he could
not meet me ; but brunch was at ten and he told me
to go to his house as soon as I was finished with the
one or two things I had to do in the town.

Make yourself at home,” he said, ” and if you want
a drink ask the boy for it. I’ll get back as soon as
I’ve got through with my business.”

I found out where there was a garage and made a
bargain with the owner of a very dilapidated Ford to
take me and my baggage to Taunggp. I left my
Madrassi servant to see that everything was stowed
in it that was possible and the rest tied on to the foot-
boards and strolled along to Masterson’s house. It was
a neat little bungalow in a road shaded by tall trees,
and in the early light of a sunny day looked pretty and
homelike. I walked up the steps and was hailed by
Masterson.

” I got done more quickly than I expected. I shall
have time to show you my things before brunch is
ready. What will you have ? I’m afraid I can only
offer you a whisky and soda.”

” Isn’t it rather early for that ? ”

39

Rather. But it*s one of the rules of the house that
nobody crosses the threshold without having a drink.”
” What can I do but submit to the rule ? ”

He called the boy and in a moment a trim Burmese
brought in a decanter, a syphon and glasses. I sat
down and looked about the room. Though it was
still so early the sun was hot outside and the
jalousies were drawn. The light was pleasant and cool
after the glare of the road. The room was comfortably
furnished with rattan chairs and on the walls were
water-colour paintings of English scenes. They were
a little prim and old-fashioned and I guessed that they
had been painted in her youth by the maiden and
elderly aunt of my host. There were two of a
cathedral I did not know, two or three of a rose
garden and one of a Georgian house. When he saw
my eyes for an instant rest upon this, he said :

“ That was our house at Cheltenham.”

“ Oh, is that where you come from ? ”

Then there was his collection. The room was crowded
with Buddhas and with figures, in bronze or wood, of
the Buddha^s disciples ; there were boxes of all shapes,
utensils of one kind and another, curiosities of every
sort, and although there were far too many they were
arranged with a certain taste so that the effect was
pleasing. He had some lovely things. He showed
them to me with pride, telling me how he had got this
object and that, and how he had heard of another and
hunted it down and the incredible astuteness he had
employed to induce an unwilling owner to part with it.
His kindly eyes shone when he described a great
bargain and they flashed darkly when he inveighed

D

4iO

against the unreasonableness of a vendor who rather
than accept a fair price for a bronze dish had taken it
away There were flowers in the room, and it had not
the forlorn look that so many bachelors’ houses have
in the East*

“ You’ve made the place very comfortable,” 1 said.

He gave the room a sweeping glance.

“ It was all right. It’s not much now.”

I did not quite know what he meant. Then he
showed me a long wooden gilt box, decorated with the
glass mosaic that I had admired in the palace at
Mandalay, but the workmanship was more delicate than
anything I had seen there, and this with its gem-like
richness had really something of the ornate exquisiteness
of the Italian Eenaissance.

“ They tell me it’s about a couple of hundred years
old,” he said. “ They’ve not been able to turn out
anything like this for a long time.”

It was a piece made obviously for a king’s palace
and you wondered to what uses it had been put and
what hands it had passed through. It was a jewel.

“ What is the inside like ? ” I asked.

“ Oh, nothing much. It’s just lacquered.”

He opened it and I saw that it contained three or
four framed photographs.

“ Oh, I’d forgotten those were there,” he said.

His soft, musical voice had a queer sound in it, and
I gave him a sidelong look. He was bronzed by the
sun, but his face notwithstanding flushed a deeper red.
He was about to close the box, and then he changed
his mind. He took out one of the photographs and
showed it to me.

41

** Some of these Burmese girls are rather sweet when
they're young, aren’t they ? ” he said.

The photograph showed a young girl standing some-
what self-consciously against the conventional back-
ground of a photographer’s studio, a pagoda and a group
of palm-trees. She was w^earing her best clothes and she
had a flower in her hair. But the embarrassment you
saw she felt at having her picture taken did not prevent
a shy smile from trembhng on her lips and her large
solemn eyes had ne\ertheless a roguish twinkle- She
was very small and very slender.

** What a ravishing little thing,” I said.

Then Masterson took out another photograph in
which she sat with a child standing by her side, his
hand timidly on her knee, and a baby in her arms. The
child stared straight in front of him with a look of
terror on his face ; he could not understand what that
machine and the man behind it, his head under a black
cloth, were up to.

“ Are those her children ? ” I asked.

“ And mine,” said Masterson.

At that moment the boy came in to say that brunch
was ready. We went into the dining-room and sat
down.

“ I don’t know what you’ll get to eat. Since my girl
went away everything in the house has gone to blazes.”

A sulky look came into his red honest face and I did
not know what to reply.

“ I’m so hungry that whatever I get will seem good,”
I hazarded.

He did not say anything and a plate of thin porridge
was put before us. I helped myself to milk and sugar.

42

Masterson ate a spoonful or two and pushed his plate
aside.

‘‘ I wish I hadn’t looked at those damned photo-
graphs/’ he said. “ I put them away on purpose.”

I did not want to be inquisitive or to force a confidence
my host had no wish to give, but neither did I desire to
seem so imconcerned as to prevent him from telling me
something he had in his heart. Often in some lonely
post in the jungle or in a stiff grand house, solitary in the
midst of a teeming Chinese city, a man has told me
stories about himself that I was sure he had never told
to a living soul. I was a stray acquaintance whom he
had never seen before and would never see again, a
wanderer for a moment through his monotonous life,
and some starved impulse led him to lay bare his soul. I
have in this way learned more about men in a night
(sitting over a syphon or two and a bottle of whisky, the
hostile, inexplicable world outside the radius of an
acetelyne lamp) than I could have if I had known them
for ten years. If you are interested in human nature it
is one of the great pleasures of travel. And when you
separate (for you have to be up betimes) sometimes they
will say to you :

” I’m afraid I’ve bored you to death with all this
nonsense. I haven’t talked so much for six months.
But it’s done me good to get it off my chest.”

The boy removed the porridge plates and gave each of
us a piece of pale fried fish. It was rather cold.

” The fish is beastly, isn’t it ? ” said Masterson. ” I
hate river fish, except trout ; the only thing is to
smother it with Worcester sauce.”

He helped himself freely and passed me the bottle.

4d

She was a damned good housekeeper, my girl ; I
used to feed like a fighting-cock when she was here.
She’d have had the cook out of the house in a quarter
of an hour if he’d sent in muck like this.”

He gave me a smile, and I noticed that his smile was
very sweet. It gave him a peculiarly gentle look.

” It was rather a wrench parting \v1th her, you know. ”

It was quite evident now that he wished to talk and I
had no hesitation in giving him a lead.

” Did you have a row ? ”

” No. You could hardly call it a row. She lived with
me five years and we never had a tiff even. She was the
best-tempered little thing that ever was. Nothing
seemed to put her out. She was always as merry as a
cricket. You couldn’t look at her without her lips
breaking into a smile. She was always happy. And
there was no reason why she shouldn’t be. I was very
good to her.”

“ I’m sure you were,” I answered.

” She was mistress here. I gave her everything she
wanted. Perhaps if I’d been more of a brute she
wouldn’t have gone away.”

” Don’t make me say anything so obvious as that
women are incalculable.”

He gave me a deprecating glance and there was a
trace of shyness in the smile that just flickered in his
eyes

” Would it bore you awfully if I told you about it ? ”

“ Of course not.”

” Well, I saw her one day in the street and she rather
took my fancy. I showed you her photograph, but the
photograph doesn’t begin to do her justice. It sounds

44

silly to say about a Burmese girl, but she was like a
rose-bud, not an English rose, you know, she was as
little like that as the glass flowers on that box I showed
you are like real flowers, but a rose grown in an Eastern
garden that had something strange and exotic about it.
I don't know how to make myself plain ? "

“ I think I understand what you mean all the same," I
smiled.

“ I saw her two or three times and found out where she
lived. I sent my boy to make enquiries about her, and
he told me that her parents were quite willing that I
should have her if we could come to an arrangement. I
wasn't inclined to haggle and everything was settled in
no time. Her family gave a party to celebrate the
occasion and she came to live here. Of course I treated
her in every way as my wife and put her in charge of the
house. I told the boys that they'd got to take their
orders from her and if she complained of any of them out
they went. You know, some fellows keep their girls in
the servants' quarters and when they go away on tour
the girls have a rotten time. Well, I think that's a
filthy thing to do. If you are going to have a girl to live
with you the least you can do is to see that she has a
good time.

She was a great success and I was as pleased as
Punch. She kept the house spotless. She saved me
money. She wouldn't let the boys rob me. I taught
her to play bridge and believe me, she learned to play a
damned good game."

" Did she like it ? "

" Loved it. When people came here she couldn’t
have received them better if she'd been a duchess.

45

You know, these Burmese have beautiful manners.
Sometimes it would make me laugh to see the assurance
wilh which she would receive my guests, government
officials, you know, and soldiers who were passing
through. If some young subaltern was rather shy she'd
put him at his ease at once. She was never pushing or
obtrusive, but just there when she was wanted and doing
her best to see that everjrthing went well and everyone
had a good time. And m tell you what, she could
mix the best cocktail you'd get anywhere between
Rangoon and Bhamo. People used to say I was lucky."

“ I'm bound to say I think you were," I said.

The curry was served and I piled my plate with rice
and helped myself to chicken and then chose from a
dozen little dishes the condiments I fancied. It was a
good curry.

" Then she had her babies, three in three years, but
one died when it was six weeks old. I showed you a
photograph of the two that are living. Funny looking
little things, aren't they ? Are you fond of children ? "

“Yes. I have a strange and almost unnatural
passion for new-born babies."

“ I don't think I am, you know. I couldn’t even feel
very much about my own. I've often wondered if it
showed that I was rather a rotter."

“ I don't think so. I think the passion many people
affect for children is merely a fashionable pose. I have a
notion that children are all the better for not being
burdened with too much parental love."

“ Then my girl asked me to many her, legally I mean,
in the English way. I treated it as a joke. I didn’t
know how she'd got such an idea in her head. I thought

46

it was only a whim and I gave her a gold bracelet to keep
her quiet. But it wasn’t a whim. She was quite
serious about it. I told her there was nothing doing.
But you know what women are, when they once set
their mind on getting something they never give you a
moment’s peace. She wheedled and sulked, she cried,
she appealed to my compassion, she tried to extract a
promise out of me when I was rather tight, she was on
the watch for me when I was feeling amorous, she nearly
tripped me when she was ill. She watched me more
carefully, I should think, than a stockbroker ever
watched the market, and I knew that, however natural
she seemed, however occupied with something else, she
was always warily alert for the unguarded moment
when she could pounce on me and gain her point.”

Masterson gave me once more his slow, ingenuous
smile.

“ I suppose women are pretty much the same all the
world over,” he said.

“ I expect so,” I answered.

” A thing I’ve never been able to understand is why a
woman thinks it worth while to make you do something
you don’t want to. She’d rather you did a thing
against the grain than not do it at all. I don’t see what
satisfaction it can be to them.”

The satisfaction of triumph. A man convinced
against his will may be of the same opinion still, but a
woman doesn’t mind that. She has conquered. She
has proved her power.”

Masterson shrugged his shoulders. He drank a cup
of tea.

” You see, she said that sooner or later I was bound to

47

marry an English girl and turn her out. I said I wasn't
thinking of marrying. She said she knew all about that.
And even if I didn't I should retire some day and go
back to England. And where would she be then ? It
went on for a year. I held out. Then she said that if I
wouldn't marry her she'd go and take the kids with her.
I told her not to be a silly little fool. She said that if
she left me now she could marry a Bunnan, but in a few
years nobody would want her. She began to pack her
things. I thought it was only a bluff and I called it : I
said, * Well, go if you want to, but if you do you won't
come back.’ I didn’t think she'd give up a house like
this, and the presents I made her, and all the pickings,
to go back to her own family. They were as poor as
church mice. Well, she went on packing her things.
She was just as nice as ever to me, she was gay and
smiling ; when some fellows came to spend the night
here she was just as cordial as usual, and she played
bridge with us till two in the morning. I couldn’t
believe she meant to go and yet I was rather scared.
I was very fond of her. She was a damned good
sort.”

“ But if you were fond of her why on earth didn't you
marry her ? It had been a great success .' '

“ I'll tell you. If I married her I'd have to stay in
Burma for the rest of my life. Sooner or later I shall
retire and then I want to go back to my old home and
live there . I don't want to be buried out here, I want to
he buried in an English churchyard. I’m happy
enough here, but I don't want to live here always. I
couldn't. I want England. Sometimes I get sick of
this hot sunshine and these garish colours. I want grey

48

skies and a soft rain falling and the smell of the country.
I shall be a funny fat elderly man when I go back, too old
to hunt even if I could afford it, but I can fish. I don’t
want to shoot tigers, I want to shoot rabbits. And I
can play golf on a proper course. I know I shall be out
of it, we fellows whoVe spent our lives out here always
are, but I can potter about the local club and talk to
retired Anglo-Indians . I want to feel under my feet the
grey pavement of an English country town, I want to be
able to go and have a row with the butcher because the
steak he sent me in yesterday was tough, and I want to
browse about second-hand bookshops. I want to be said
how d you do to in the street by people who knew me
when I was a boy. And I want to have a walled garden
at the back of my house and grow roses. I daresay it all
soimds very humdrum and provincial and dull to you,
but that’s the sort of life my people have always lived
and that’s the sort of life I want to live myself. It’s a
dream if you like, but it’s all I have, it means everything
in the world to me, and I can’t give it up.”

He paused for a moment and looked into my eyes.

” Do you think me an awful fool ? ”

“ No.”

“ Then one morning she came to me and said that she
was off. She had her things put on a cart and even then
I didn’t think she meant it. Then she put the two
children in a rickshaw and came to say good-bye to me.
She began to cry. By George, that pretty well broke
me up. I asked her if she really meant to go and she
said yes, unless I married her. I shook my head. I
very nearly yielded. I’m afraid I was crying too.
Then she gave a great sob and ran out of the house* I

49

had to drink about half a tumbler of whisky to steady my
nerves.”

“ How long ago did this happen ? ”

** Four months. At first I thought she’d come back
and then because I thought she was ashamed to make
the first step I sent my boy to tell her that if she wanted
to come I’d take her. But she refused. The house
seemed awfully empty without her. At first I thought
I’d get used to it, but somehow it doesn’t seem to get
any less empty. I didn’t know how much she meant to
me She’d twined herself round my heart.”

“ I suppose she’ll come back if you agree to marry
her.”

“ Oh, yes, she told the boy that. Sometimes I ask
myself if it’s worth while to sacrifice my happiness for a
dream. It is only a dream, isn’t it ? It’s funny, one of
the things that holds me back is the thought of a muddy
lane I know, with great clay banks on both sides of it,
and above, beech trees bending over. It’s got a sort of
cold, earthy smell that I can never quite get out of my
nostrils. I don’t blame her, you know. I rather
admire her. I had no idea she had so much character.
Sometimes I’m awfully inclined to give way.” He
hesitated for a little while “ I think, perhaps, if I
thought she loved me I would. But of course, she
doesn’t ; they never do, these girls who go and live with
white men, I think she liked me, but that’s all. What
would you do in my place ? ”

” Oh, my dear fellow, how can I tell ^ Would you
ever forget the dream ? ”

“ Never.”

At that moment the boy came in to say that my

50

Madrassi servant with the Ford car had just come up.
Masterson looked at his watch,

“ You'll want to be getting off, won’t you ? And I
must get back to my office. I’m afraid I’ve rather
bored you with my domestic affairs.”

** Not at all,” I said.

We shook hands, I put on my topee, and he waved to
me as the car drove off.

XI

I SPENT a few days at Taunggyi completing my
preparations and then early one morning started.
It was the end of the rainy season and the sky was
overcast, but the clouds were high in the heavens and
bright. The country was wide and open, sparsely
covered with little trees ; but now and then, a giant
among them, you came upon a huge banyan with wide-
spreading roots. It stood upon the earth, a fit object
for worship, with a kind of solemnity, as though it were
conscious of victory over the blind force of nature and
now like a great power aware of its enemy's strength,
rested in armed peace. At its foot were the offerings
that the Shans had placed to the spirit that dwelt in it.
The road woimd tortuously up and down gentle de-
clivities and on each side of it, stretching over the
upland plains, swayed the elephant grass. Its white
fronds waved softly in the balmy air. It was higher
than a man and I rode between it like the leader of an
army reviewing coimtless regiments of tall green
soldiers.

I rode at the head of the caravan, and the mules and
ponies that carried the loads followed at my heeb. But
one of the ponies, unused perhaps to a pack, was very
wild. It had savage eyes. Every now and then it
bolted wildly among the mules, hitting them with its
packs ; then the leading mule headed it off, rounding it

51

52

into the long grass at the side of the road, and stopped
it. They both stood still for a moment and then the
mule led the pony quietly back to its place in the file.
It walked along quite contentedly. It had had its
scamper and for a little wlule at all events was prepared
to behave reasonably. The idea in the mulish brain of
the pack-leader was as clear and distinct as any idea of
Descartes . In the train was peace, order and happiness .
To walk with your nose at the tail of the mule in front of
you and to know that the nose of the mule behind you
was at your tail, was virtue. Like some philosophers
the mule knew that the only liberty was the power to do
right ; any other power was only licence. Theirs not to
reason why, theirs but to do and die.

But presently I came face to face with a buffalo
standing stock still in the middle of the road. Now I
knew that the Shan buffalo had none of that dislike of
my colour that makes white men give the Chinese
buffalo a wide berth, but I was not certain whether this
particular animal had a very exact notion of nationality,
and since his horns were enormous and his eyes far from
friendly I thought it prudent to make a slight detour :
whereupon the whole file, though neither mules nor
muleteers could have had my reason for anxiety,
followed me into the elephant grass. I could not but
reflect that an undue observance of the law may put
you to a good deal of xumecessary trouble.

With abundant leisure before me and nothing to
distract, I had promised myself to think out on this
journey various things that had been on my mind for a
long time. There were a number of subjects, error and
evil, space, time, chance and mutability, which I felt I

5S

should really come to some conclusion about. I had a
great deal to say to myself about art and life, but my
ideas were higgledy-piggledy like the objects in an old
junk shop and I did not know where to put my hands on
them when I wanted them. They were in corners of
my mind, like oddments stowed away at the back of a
chest of drawers, and I only just knew they were there.
Some of them hadn’t been taken out and brushed for so
long that it was a disgrace, the new and the old were all
jumbled together, and some were of no use any more and
might just as well be thrown on the dust heap, and some
(like a pair of Queen Anne spoons long forgotten that
with the four a dealer has just found you in an auction
room make up the half dozen) would fit very well with
new ones. It would be pleasant to have everything
cleaned and dusted, neatly put away on shelves,
ordered and catalogued so that I knew what my stock
consisted of. I resolved that while I rode through the
country I would have a regular spring-cleaning of all my
ideas. But the pack-leader had round his neck a raucous
bell and it clanged so loudly that my reflections were
very much disturbed. It was like a muffin bell and it
made me think of Sunday afternoon in the London of
my youth, with its empty streets and its grey, cold and
melancholy sky. I put the spurs to my pony so that I
might trot on and escape the dreary sound, but as soon as
I began to do so the leader trotted too and the whole
cavalcade trotted after him ; I galloped and in a moment
mules and ponies, their packs jangling and bumping,
were galloping helter-skelter after me, and the muffin
bell rattled madly at my heels as though it were knelling
the death agonies of all the muffin-makers in London. I

54

gave it np as a bad job and settled down again to walk ;
the train slowed down and just behind me the pack-
leader shufSed up and down the empty, respectable
street offering muffins for tea, muffins and crumpets. I
could not put two thoughts together. I resigned myself
at least for that day to make no attempt at serious
meditation and instead, to pass the time, invented
Blenkinsop.

There can be nothing so gratifying to an author as to
arouse the respect and esteem of the reader. Make him
laugh and he will think you a trivial fellow, but bore him
in the right way and your reputation is assured. There
was once a man called Blenkinsop. He had no talent,
but he wrote a book in which his earnestness and his
sincerity, his thoughtfulness and his integrity were so
evident that, although it was quite unreadable, no one
could fail to be impressed by it. Reviewers were unable
to get through it, but could not but recognise the
author’s high aim and purity of purpose. They praised
it with such an enthusiastic unanimity that all the
people who flatter themselves they are in the movement
felt bound to have it on their tables. The critic of The
London Mercury said that he would have liked to have
written it himself. This was the highest praise he knew.
Mr. Blenkinsop deplored the grammar but accepted the
compliment. Mrs. Woolf paid it a generous tribute at
Bloomsbury, Mr. Osbert Sitwell admired it in Chelsea
and Mr. Arnold Bennett was judicious about it in
Cadogan Square. Smart women of easy morals bought
it so that people should not think they had no mind
above the Embassy Club and banting. The poets who
go to luncheon parties talked of it exactly as though they

55

had read it from cover to cover- It was bought in the
great provincial towns where the virtuous young are
gathered together at high tea to improve their minds.
Mr. Hugh Walpole wrote a preface to the American
edition. The booksellers placed it in piles in their shop
windows with a photograph of the author on one side
and a card with long extracts from the more important
reviews on the other. In short the vogue of the book
was so great that its publisher said that if it did not stop
selling soon he would have to read it himself. Mr.
Blenkinsop became a celebrity. He was asked to its
annual dinner by the Lyceum Club.

Now it happened that just about the time when
Mr. Blenkinsop ’s book reached this dizzy height of
success, the Prime Minister’s secretary presented the
Prime Minister with the list of birthday honours. This
high dignitary of the Crown looked at it with misgiving.

“ A pretty mangy lot,” he said. “ The public will
raise a stink about this.”

The secretary was a democrat.

” Who cares ? ” he said. “ Let the public go and
boil itself.”

“ Couldn’t we do something for arts and letters ? ”
suggested the Prime Minister,

The secretary remarked that almost all the RA.’s
were knights already and those that were kicked up the
devil of a row if any others were knighted.

“ The more the merrier, I should have thought,” said
the Prime Minister flippantly.

Not at all,” answered the secretary. “ The more
titled R.A.’s there are the less is their financial value.”

** I see,” said the Prime Minister. “ But are there

E

56

no authors in England ? ”

** I will inqxiire/’ replied the secretary, who had been
at Balliol.

He asked at the National Liberal Club and was told
that there were Sir Hall Caine and Sir Janaes Barrie.
But honours had already been heaped upon them so
freely that there seemed nothing more to offer them than
the Garter and it was evident that the Lord Mayor of
London would be very much put out if they were
offered that. The Prime Minister was, however,
insistent and his secretary was in a quandary. But one
day when he was being shaved his barber asked him if he
had read Blenkinsop’s book.

** I*m not much of a reader meself,” he said, “ but our
Miss Burroughs, she done your nails last time you was
here, sir, she says it’s simply divine.”

The Prime Minister’s secretary was a man who made
it his business to be abreast of the current movements in
art and literature, and he was well aware that Blenkin-
sop’s book was a sound piece of work. In honouring
him the State would honour itself and the public might
swallow without a wry face the baronetcies and peerages
that rewarded services of a less obvious character. But
he could afford to take no risks and so sent for the
manicurist.

” Have you read it ? ” he asked her point blank.

“ No, sir, I haven’t exactly what you might call read
it, but all the gentlemen who talk about it when I’m
doing their nails say it’s absolutely priceless.”

The result of this conversation was that the secretary
placed Bletikinsop’s name before the Prime Minister
and told him of his book.

57

“ What do you think about it yourself? ” asked the
great man.

I haven’t read it, I don’t read books,” replied the
secretary frigidly, “ but there’s nothing about it that I
don’t know.”

Blenkinsop was offered a K.C.V.O.

“ We may just as well do the thing well if we’re going
to do it at all,” said the Prime Minister.

But Blenkinsop, true to his character, begged to be
allowed to refuse the distinction. Here was a pretty
kettle of fish ! The Prime Minister’s secretary was at
his wit’s end. But the Prime Minister was a man of
determination. When h^ had once made up his mind
to do a thing he would allow no obstacle to stand in his
way. He discovered the solution in a flash of his fertile
brain and literature after all found a place in the birth-
day honours. A viscounty was conferred on the Editor
of Bradshaw’s Railway Time Tables

XII

But even when I had learned by experience that if
I wanted a quiet ride I must give the mules an
hour’s start of me I found it impossible to con-
centrate my thoughts on any of the subjects that I had
selected for meditation. Though nothing of the least
consequence happened my attention was distracted by a
hundred trifling incidents of the wayside. Two big
butterflies in black and white fluttered along in front of
me, and they were like young war widows bearing the
loss they had sustained for their country’s sake with
cheerful resignation : so long as there were dances at
Claridge’s and dressmakers in the Place Vendome they
were ready to swear that all was well with the world. A
little cheeky bird hopped down the road turning round
every now and then jauntily as though to call my atten-
tion to her smart suit of silver grey. She looked like a
neat typist tripping along from the station to her office
in Cheapside. A swarm of safiron butterflies upon the
droppings of an ass reminded me of pretty girls in
evening firocks hovering round an obese financier. At
the roadside grew a flower that was like the Sweet
William that I remember in the cottage gardens of my
childhood and another had the look of a more leggy
white heather. I wish, as many writers do, I could give
distinction to these pages by the enumeration of the
birds and flowers that I saw as I ambled along on my

58

59

little Shan pony. It has a scientific air and though the
reader skips the passage it gives him a slight thriU of
self-esteem to know that he is reading a book with solid
fact in it. It puts you on strangely familiar terms with
your reader when you tell him that you came across P.
J ohnsonii. It has a significance that is almost cabalistic;
you and he (writer and reader) share a knowledge that is
not common to all and sundry and there is the sympathy
between you that there is between men who wear
masonic aprons or Old Etonian ties. You communicate
with one another in a secret language. I should be
proud to read in a footnote of a learned work on the
botany or ornithology of Upper Burma, Maugham,
korvever, states that he ohseroed F. Jonesia in the Southern
Shan States^ But I know nothing of botany and
ornithology. I could, indeed, fill a page with the names
of all the sciences of which I am completely ignorant. A
yellow primrose to me, alas ! is not primula Vulgaris,
but just a small yellow flower, ever so faintly scented
with the rain, and grey balmy mornings in February
when you have a funny little flutter in your heart, and
the smell of the rich wet Kentish earth, and kind dead
faces, and the statue of Lord Beaconsfield in his bronze
robes in Parliament Square, and the yellow hair of a girl
with a sweet smile, hair now grey and shingled.

I passed a party of Shans cooking their dinner under a
tree. Their wagons were placed in a circle rotmd them,
making a kind of laager, and the bullocks were grazing a
little way off. I went on a mile or two and came upon
a respectable Burman sitting at the side of the
road and smoking a cheroot. Round him were his
servants, with their loads on the ground beside them.

for he had no mules and they were carrying his luggage
themselves. They had made a little fire of sticks and
were cooking the rice for his midday meal. I stopped
while my interpreter had a chat with the respectable
Burman. He was a clerk from Keng Tung on his way to
Taunggyi to look for a situation in a government oifice.
He had been on the road for eighteen days and with only
four more to go looked upon his journey as nearly at an
end. Then a Shan on horseback threw confusion among
the thoughts I tried to marshal. He rode a shaggy pony
and his feet were bare in his stirrups. He wore a white
jacket and his coloured skirt was tucked up so that it
looked like gay riding breeches. He had a yellow
handkercliief bound round his head. He was a romantic
figure cantering through that wide upland, but not so
romantic as Rembrandt's Polish Rider who rides through
space and time with so gallant a bearing. No living
horseman has ever achieved that effect of mystery so
that when you look at him you feel that you stand on the
threshold of an unknown that lures you on and yet
closes the way for you. Nor is it strange, for nature and
the beauty of nature are dead and senseless things and
it is only art that can give them significance.

But with so much to distract me I could not but
suspect that I should reach my journey's end without
after all having made up my mind upon a single one of
the important subjects that I had promised myself to
consider.

The day’s march was no more than from twelve
to fifteen miles, that being the distance that a
mule can comfortably do, and the distance from
one another at which the P.W.D. bungalows are placed.
But because it is the daily routine it gives you just as
much the sensation of covering space as if you had been
all day in an express train. When you arrive at your
destination you are in reality just as far from your
starting place though you have gone but a few miles as
if you had travelled from Paris to Madrid. Wlien you
have ridden along a stream for a couple of days it seems
to you of quite imposing length ; you ask its name and
are surprised to find that it has none, until you stop to
reflect that you have followed it for no more than five and
twenty miles. And the differences between the upland
that you rode through yesterday and the jungle that
you are riding through to-day impress themselves upon
you as much as the differences between one country and
another.

But because the bungalows are all built on the same
pattern, though you have been riding for several
hours (your caravan does little more than two miles an
hour) you seem always to arrive at the same house. It
stands on piles in a compound a few yards away from the
road. There is a large living-room, and behind, two
bedrooms with their bath-rooms. In the middle of the

6x

62

living-room is a handsome teak table. There are two
easy-chairs with extensions for the legs and four stout,
severe armchairs to set round the table. There is a
chiffonier on which are copies of the Strand Magazine
for 191 8 and two tattered much read novels by Phillips
Oppenheim. On the walls there is a longitudinal section
of the road, a summary of the Burma Game rules and a
list of the furniture and the household utensils of the
bungalow. In the compound are the servants’ quarters
stalls for the ponies and a cook-house. It is certainly
not very pretty, it is not very comfortable, but it is solid,
substantial and serviceable ; and though I had never
seen any one bungalow before and after that day
should never see it again, I seldom caught sight of it at
the end of the morning’s journey without a little thrill of
content. It was like coming home and when I got my
first glimpse of its trim roof I put the spurs to my pony
and galloped helter-skelter to the door.

The bungalow stands generally on the outskirts of a
village, and when I arrived at the confines of the com-
mune I found waiting to greet me the headman with his
clerk and an attendant, a son or nephew, and the elders.
When I approached they went down on their haunches,
shikoed and offered me a cup of water, a few marigolds
and a little rice. I drank the water with misgiving.
But once I was handed on a tray eight thin tapers and
was told that this was the highest mark of respect that
could be shown me, for they were the tapers that were
set before the image of Buddha, I could not but be
conscious that I little deserved such a compliment. I
settled down in the bungalow and then my interpreter
informed me that the headman and the elders stood

63

without desiring to tender the customary presents
They brought them in on lacquer trays, eggs, rice and
bananas. I sat down in a chair and they knelt on the
floor in a half-circle in front of me. The headman, with
abundant gestures but with composure, made me a long
harangue. Through the translation that my interpreter
gave me I thought I perceived certain phrases that were
not unfamiliar to me, and I seemed to discern something
about one flag, hands across the sea and the desire that I
should take back to my own country not only a greeting
from this distant land, but the urgent request of the
inhabitants that the government would build a metal
road. I felt it became me to make a reply if not as
eloquent at least as long. I was only a wandering
stranger, and if by the instructions they had received to
make easy my way they had been misled into thinking
me a person of any consequence I could at least do
myself the justice of not behaving like one. I am no
politician and I was too shamefaced to utter the imperial
platitudes that fall so trippingly from the mouth of
those who make it their business to govern empires.
Perhaps I might have told my listeners that they were
fortimate in being under the control of a power that was
content to leave them alone. Once a year the Resident
of the district came roimd and composed the differences
that they could not compose themselves, listened to
their complaints, appointed a new headman when one
was needed, and then left them to their own devices.
They governed themselves according to their own
customs and they were free to grow their rice, to marry,
bring forth children, and die, to worship the gods they
chose, without let or hindrance. They saw no soldiers

64t

and had no jail. But I felt that these matters were not
of my competence and so contented myself with the
smaller office of amusing them. Though no speaker (I
can count on one hand the speeches that on public
occasions I have been induced to make), it was not hard
to devise a few graceful and humorous remarks in return
for the eggs, bananas and rice which were presented to
me.

It is not easy, however, to make forty different
speeches about eggs, bananas and rice, and the eggs I
soon learnt by experience were far from fresh. But
thinking my interpreter would despise me if I said the
same thing every day, in the morning as I rode along I
racked my brain for new ways of expressing my grati-
fication at my welcome and my present. I invented as
one day followed another more than thirty different
speeches and when I sat there while my interpreter
translated what I had said, it was a satisfaction for me to
see the little nods the headman and the elders gave me
when a point had gone home and the way they shook
themselves when they saw a joke. Now one morning I
suddenly thought of an entirely new j est. It was a very
good one and I saw in the twinkling of an eye how I
could bring it into my speech. The lot of the English
and the American humorist is hard, for pornography
rather than brevity is the soul of wit, but the prudishness
of his audience (and perhaps their sentimentality) has
forced him to look for a laugh everywhere but where it is
most easily to be found. But just as the poet may beat
out more exquisite verse when he is constrained by the
complicated measures of a Pindaric ode than when he
has the elbow room of blank verse, so the difficulties

65

placed in the way of our humorists have often resulted
in their making unexpected discoveries in the ludicrous.
They have found a rich load of laughter where but for
the taboos they would never have sought it. The two
pitfalls that threaten the humorist are the inane on one
side and the disgusting on the other ; and it is a regret-
table fact, which the English or American humorist
has to put up with, that the inane enrages more than the
disgusting revolts.

But by this time I knew my public and this joke,
though I hope not coarse, just touched the obscene as a
mosquito touches your face and then flies away buzzing
when you slap. It amused me very much, and as I rode
along I thought of the headman and the elders of the
village I was approaching, on their knees on the floor in
front of me, shaking with laughter and rolling from side
to side.

We arrived. The village chief was a man of fifty-
seven and he had been headman for thirty years. He
brought his nephew, a shy youth with the beginnings of a
beard, four or five elders and the clerk, who sat a little by
himself, a man of immeasurable age, wrinkled, with a
sparse grey beard, a man jso old that he seemed hardly
human. He looked like a pagoda which is tumbling
into ruin and soon the encroaching jungle will fall upon
it and it will be no more.

In due time I made my speech and when I came to my
good joke the inteipreter giggled and his eyes glistened.
I was pleased. I finished and sat back in my chair
while he translated my winged words. The little half-
circle of listeners turned firom me to him and watched
him with dark, attentive eyes. He was a good

66

speaker, my interpreter, fluent, with a gift of easy and
descriptive gesture. I always felt that he did me
justice. I had never made a wittier speech. I was
surprised that it did not seem to go down Not a smile
rewarded any of my sallies ; they listened politely, but
no change in their expression suggested that they were
either interested or amused. I had kept my best joke
for the last and as I reckoned that it was approaching, a
smile on my lips, I leaned forward. The interpreter
finished. Not a laugh, not a chuckle. I will admit that
I was put out. I signified to the headman that the
ceremony was at an end, they shikoed, struggled
to their feet, and one after the other left the
bungalow.

For a moment I hesitated.

“ They didn’t seem to me very intelligent,” I
hazarded.

They were the stupidest lot of people we’ve come
across,” said my interpreter, and there was indignation
in his tone. I’ve made the same jokes every day and
this is the first time they’ve never laughed.”

I was a trifled startled. I was not sure that I under-
stood.

** I beg your pardon ? ” I said.

“ What for you say all sorts of different things, sir f
You take too much trouble for ignorant men like that.
I make the same speech every day and they like it very
much.”

I was silent for a moment.

” For all you care I might just as well say the multi-
plication table,” I said then, with what I thought a
certain irony.

My interpreter smiled brightly, flashing a great many
white teeth at me.

“ Yes, sir, that will save you a lot of trouble,’* he said.
“ You say the multiplication table and then I make my
speech.”

The worst of it was that I could not be quite certain
that I remembered it.

#

XIV

W^HEN I set out in the early morning the dew
was so heavy that I could see it falling, and the
sky was grey ; but in a little while the sun
pierced through and in the sky, blue now, the cumulus
clouds were like white sea-monsters gambolling sedately
round the North Pole. The country was thinly peopled
and on each side of the road was the jungle. For some
days we went through pleasant uplands by a broad
track, unmetalled but hard, its surface deeply furrowed
by the passage of buUock-carts. Now and then I saw a
pigeon and now and then a crow, but there were few
birds. Then leaving the open spaces we passed through
secluded hills and forests of bamboo. A bamboo forest
is a graceful thing. It has the air of an enchanted wood
and you can imagine that in its green shade the princess,
heroine of an Eastern story, and the prince her lover
might very properly undergo their incredible and
fantastic adventures . When the sun shines through and
a tenuous breeze flutters its elegant leaves, the effect is
charmingly unreal ; it has a beauty not of nature, but of
the theatre.

At last we arrived at the Salween. This is one of the
great rivers that rise far up in the Tibetan steppes, the
Bramahputra, the Irrawaddy, the Salween and the
Melikong, and roll southwards in parallel courses to
pour their mighty waters into the Indian Ocean,

68

69

Being very ignorant I had never heard of it till I went
to Burma and even then it was nothing to me but a
name. It had none of the associations that are for ever
attached to such rivers as the Ganges, the Tiber and the
Guadalquiver. It was only as I went along that it
gained a meaning to me and with a meaning mystery.
It was a measure of distance, we were seven days from
the Salw’een, then six ; it seemed very remote ; and at
Mandalay I had heard people say :

“ Don’t the Rogers live on the Salween ? You must
go and stay with them when you cross.”

Oh, my dear fellow,” someone expostulated, “ they
live right down on the Siamese frontier, he won’t be
going within three weeks journey of them.”

And when we passed some rare traveller on the road
perhaps my interpreter after talking to him would come
and tell me that he had crossed the Salween three days
before. The water was high, but was going down ; in
bad weather it was no joke crossing. “ Beyond the
Salween ” had a stirring sound and the country seemed
dim and aloof. I added one little impression to another,
a detached fact, a word, an epithet, the recollection of
an engraving in an old book, enriching the name with
associations as the lover in StendhaTs book decks his
beloved with the j ewels of his fancy, and soon the thought
of the Salween intoxicated my imagination. It became
the Oriental river of my dreams, a broad stream, deep
and secret, flowing through wooded hills, and it had
romance, and a dark mystery so that you could scarcely
believe that it rose here and there poured itself into the
ocean, but like a s3rmbol of eternity flowed from an
unknown source to lose itself at last in an unknown sea.

70

We were two days from the Salween ; then one. We
left the high road and took a rocky path that wound
through the jungle in and out of the hills. There was a
heavy fog and the bamboos on each side were ghostly.
They were like the pale wraiths of giant armies that had
fought desperate wars in the beginning of the world’s
long history and now, lowering, waited in ominous
silence, waited and watched for one knew not what. But
every now and then, straight and imposing, rose dimly
the shadow of a tall, an immensely tall tree. An unseen
brook babbled noisily, but for the rest silence sur-
rounded one. No birds sang and the crickets were still.
One seemed to go stealthily, as though one had no
business there, and dangers encompassed one all about.
Spectral eyes seemed to watch one. Once when a
branch broke and fell to the ground it was with so sharp
and unexpected a sound that it startled one like a pistol
shot.

But at last we came out into the sunshine and soon
passed through a bedraggled village. Suddenly I saw
the Salween shining silvery in front of me. I was
prepared to feel like stout Cortez on his peak and was
more than ready to look upon that sheet of water with a
wild surmise, but I had already exhausted the emotion
it had to offer me. It was a more ordinary and less
imposing stream than I had expected ; indeed then, and
there, it was no wider than the Thames at Chelsea
Bridge. It flowed without turbulence, swiftly and
silently.

The raft (two dug-outs on which was built a platform
of bamboos) was at the water’s edge and we set about
unloading the mules. One of them, seized with a

71

sudden panic, bolted for the river and before anyone
could stop him plunged in. He was carried away on the
current, I would never have thought that that turbid,
sluggish stream had such a power ; he vras swept along
the reach, swiftly, swiftly, and the muleteers shouted
and waved their arms. We could see the poor brute
struggling desperately, but it was inevitable that he
would be drowned and I was thankful when a bend of the
river robbed me of the sight of him. WTien with my
pon}" and my personal effects I was ferried across the
stream I looked at it with more respect, and since the
raft seemed to me none too secure I was not sorry when
I reached the other side.

The bungalow was on the top of the bank. It was
surrounded by lawns and flowers. Poinsettias enriched
it with their brilliant hues. It had a little less than the
austerity common to the bungalows of the P.W.D. and I
was glad that I had chosen this place to linger at for a
day or twn in order to rest the mules and my own weary
limbs. From the window’s the nver shut in by the hills
looked like an ornamental water I watched the raft
going backwards and forwards bringing over the mules
and their loads. The muleteers were cheerful because
they were to get their rest and I had given the headman
a trifling sum so that they could have a treat.

Then, their duties accomplished and the servants
having impacked my things, peace descended upon the
scene, and the river, empty as though man had never
adventured up its winding defiles, regained its dim
remoteness. There was not a sound. The day waned
and the peace of the water, the peace of the tree-clad
hills and the peace of the evening were three exquisite

F

72

things. There is a moment just before sundown when
the trees seem to detach themselves from the dark mass
of the j ungle and become individuals . Then you cannot
see the wood for the trees. In the magic of the hour
they seem to acquire a life of a new kind so that it is not
hard to imagine that spirits inhabit them and with dusk
they will have the power to change their places. You
feel that at some uncertain moment some strange thing
will happen to them and they will be wondrously
transfigured. You hold your breath waiting for a
marvel the thought of which stirs your heart with a kind
of terrified eagerness. But the night falls ; the moment
has passed and once more the jungle takes them back.
It takes them back as the world takes young people who,
feeling in themselves the genius which is youth, hesitate
for an instant on the brink of a great adventure of the
spirit, and then engulfed by their surroundings sink
back into the vast anonymity of human kind. The trees
again become part of the wood ; they are still and if not
lifeless, alive only with the sullen and stubborn life of the
jungle.

The spot was so lovely and the bungalow with its
lawns and trees so homelike and peaceful that for a
moment I toyed with the notion of staying there not a
day, but a year, not a year but all my hfe. Ten days
from a railhead and my only communication with the
outside world the trains of mules that passed occasion-
ally between Taunggyi and Keng Tung, my only
intercourse the villagers from the bedraggled village on
the other side of the river, and so to spend the years
away from the turmoil, the envy and bitterness and
mahce of the world, with my thoughts, my books, my

7S

dog and my gun and all about me the vast, mysterious
and luxuriant jungle. But alas, life does not consist
only of years, but of hour*;, the day has twenty-four and
it is no paradox that they are harder to get through than
a year ; and I knew that in a week my restless spirit
would drive me on, to no envisaged goal it is true, but on
as dead leaves are blown hither and thither to no
purpose by a gusty wind. But being a \mter (no poet,
alas ! but merely a VTiter of stories) I was able to lead
for others a life I could not lead for myself. This w^as a
ft scene for an idyll of young lovers and I let my fancy
wander as I devised a story to fit the tranquil and
lovely scene. But, I do not know why unless it is
that in beauty is always something tragic, my inven-
tion threw itself into a perverse mould and disaster
fell upon the thin wraiths of my imagination.

But on a sudden I heard a commotion in the compound
and my Gurkha servant coming in at that moment with
a gin and bitters, with which I was accustomed to bid the
departing day farewell, I asked him w’hat -was the matter
He spoke tolerable English.

“ The mule that was drowned, he come back,*' he said.

“ Dead or alive ? ’* I asked.

“ Oh, he alive all right. The mule fellow he give
mule a damn good beating.”

my ? ”

“ Teach him not to show off.’^

Poor mule ! Freedom from the heavy load and the
saddle that galled his sores, and that wild excitement
when he saw the broad river before him and the green
hills on the other side. Oh, for an escapade 1 Just a
fling after all those days of humdrum labour and the joy

of feeling the strength of one’s limbs. The dash down
to the river and then the irresistible force of the stream
that carried one off, the desperate effort and the panting,
the sudden fear of death, and at last a couple of miles
down, the struggle to the safe shore. The scamper
along a jungle path and then the approach of night
Well, one had had one’s fling and one felt all the better
for it, now one could go back quite quietly to the
compound where all the other mules were and one was
ready next day or the day after to take up one’s load
again and go quietly on one’s way in the file, one’s nose
at the tail of the mule ahead of one ; and when one got
back, happy and rested after the adventure, they beat
one because they said one had been showing off. As if
one cared enough for them to bother to show off. Oh/
well, it was worth a hiding. Whoops, dearie !

XV

I TOOK to the road once more One day followed
another ^vith a monotony in which was nothing
tedious. At da^\’n a cock, cro^^ing loudly, woke me ;
and the various sounds in the compound, first one and
then after a pause another, stealing upon the silence of
the night a little uncertainly, as in a symphony one
instrument takes up after another the first notes of a
theme, the theme of day and the labour of man, the
various sounds in the compound prevented me from
going to sleep again: there was the bell around the neck
of a mule that tinkled as he stirred or the shake another
gave himself and the hee-haw of an ass ; there were the
lazy movements of the muleteers, their muffled talk, and
their cries as they called their beasts. The gathering
light crept into my room. Then I heard my servants
moving and in a little while my Ghurka boy, Rang Lai by
name, brought me my tea and took down my mosquito
curtains. I drank the tea and smoked the first delicious
cigarette of the day. Pleasant thoughts crowded upon
me, scraps of dialogue, a metaphor or a sonorous phrase,
a trait or two to add to a character, an episode, and it
was charming to lie there idly and let my fancy wander.
But Rang Lai brought in my shaving water, silently, and
the thought that it would soon grow cold urged me to get
up. I shaved and had my bath and breakfast was ready.
If I was in luck the headman of the village or the durwan

75

of the bungalow had made me a present of a papaia.
This is a fruit that many people dislike and it is true that
it needs getting used to ; but when you have, you cannot
but acquire a passion for it. It combines a clean and
delicate savour with medicinal virtues (for does it not
contain some almost incredible percentage of pepsine ?)
so that in eating it you not only satisfy the grossness of
your appetite, but attend likewise to your soul’s welfare.
It is like a beautiful woman whose conversation is
instructive and elevating.

Then I smoked my pipe and to clear my mind read,
idly enough, I fear, some philosophical treatise that was
not too heavy to hold in one hand. The first lot of
mules had already got away, and now my bedding was
rolled up, the things I had used for breakfast were put
into the proper boxes, and everything was loaded on
such of the mules as had remained behind. I let them
get ahead. I was left alone in the bungalow, my pony
tethered to a fence, and I watched with the eyes of my
mind, so to say, while the village about me, the trees
outside the bungalow, the chairs and tables, returned to
the humdrum repose from which for a few hours the
arrival of myself and my caravan had rudely snatched
them. When I went down the steps and untethered my
pony, silence, like an old madwoman with a finger on her
lips, crept past me into the room that I had left. The
map of the road hung on its nail more solidly because I
was gone and the long chair in which I had been sit-
ting gave a creaky sigh.

I started riding.

I caught up with the mules as they were nearing the
bungalow and knowing it was close they increased their

rr

pace. They went along now with a sort of bustle, the
bells ringing, the loads jangling, and the muleteers
shouted to them and called out to one another. The
muleteers were Yunnanese, strapping fellows, with
bronzed faces, ragged and unwashed, but they bore
themselves with a bold insouciance. Up and down
Asia they marched with a lazy stride, hundreds upon
hundreds of miles, and in their dark eyes were open
spaces and the dim blue of far-off mountains. The
mules crowded round them in the compound, each
wanting his own load taken off first, and there was a
shouting and a kicking and a jostling. The load is
lashed to the yokes with leather thongs and it needs tw'o
men to take it off. When this was done the mule
retreated a step or two and bowled his head as though he
were bowing his thanks for the release. Then the pack-
saddle was taken off him and he lay down on the ground
and rolled over and over to ease his back of the irritation.
One after the other as they were freed the mules
wandered out of the compound to the herbage and their
liberty.

Gin and bitters waited for me on the table, then my
curry was served, and I flung myself in a long chair and
went to sleep. When I woke I went out with my gun.
The headman had designated two or three young men to
show me where I could shoot pigeon or jungle-fowl, but
game was shy and I am a bad shot and I came back
generally with nothing for my pains but a scramble in the
bush. The light was failing. The muleteers called the
mules to shut them up for the night in the compound.
They called in a shrill falsetto, a sound wild and barbaric
that seemed scarcely human ; it was a peculiar, even a

78

terrifying cry, and it suggested vaguely the vast
distances of Asia and the nomad tribes of heaven knows
how many ages back from which they were descended.

I read till my dinner was ready. If I had crossed a
river that day I ate a bony, tasteless fish ; if not,
sardines or tunny ; a dish of tough meat, and one of the
three sweets that my Indian cook knew how to make.
Then I played patience.

I reproached myself as I set out the cards. Consider-
ing the shortness of life and the infinite number of
important things there are to do during its course, it can
only be the proof of a flippant disposition that one
should w^ste one’s time in such a pursuit. I had with
me a number of books that would have improved my
mind and others, masterpieces of style, by the study
of which I might have made progress in the learning of
this difficult language in which we write. I had a
volume, small enough to carry in my pocket, that
contained all the tragedies of Shakespeare and I had
resolved to read one act of one play on every day of my
journey. I promised myself thus both entertainment
and profit. But I knew seventeen varieties of patience.
I tried the Spider and never by any chance got it out ; I
tried the patience they play at the Florence Club (and
you should hear the shout of triumph which goes up
when some Florentine of noble family, Pazzi or Strozzi,
accomplishes it) and I tried a patience, the most in-
credibly difficult of all, that was taught me by a Dutch
gentleman from Philadelphia. Of course the perfect
patience has never been invented. This should take a
long time to do; it should be complicated, calling forth
all the ingenuity you have; it should require profound

79

thought and demand from you solid reasoning, the
exercise of logic and the weighing of chances ; it should be
fuH of hairbreadth escapes so that your heart palpitates
as you see what disaster might have befallen you had
you put down the wTong card ; it should poise you dizzy
on the topmost peak of suspense when you consider
that your fate hangs on the next card you turn up ; it
should wring your withers with apprehension ; it should
have desperate perils that you must avoid and incredible
difficulties that only a reckless courage can surmount ;
and at the end, if you have made no mistake, if you
have seized opportunity by the forelock and TSTung
unstable fortune by the neck, victory should always
crown your efforts.

But since such a patience does not exist, in the long
run I generally returned to that which has immortalised
the name of Canfield. Though it is of course very
difficult to get out, you are at least sure of some result,
and when all seems lost the turning of a sudden happy
card may grant you a respite. I have heard that this
estimable gentleman was a gambler in New York and he
sold you the pack for fifty dollars and gave you five
dollars for every card you got out. The establishment
was palatial, supper was free and champagne flowed
freely ; negroes shuffled the packs for you. There
were Turkey carpets on the floors and pictures by
Meissonier and Lord Leighton on the walls, and there
were life-sized statues in marble. I think it must have
been very like Lansdowne House.

Looking back on it from this distance it had for me
something of the charm of a genre picture and as I set
out the seven cards, and then the six, I saw from my

80

quiet room in the jungle bungalow (as it were through
the wrong end of a telescope) the rooms brightly lit
with glass chandeliers, the crowd of people, the haze of
smoke and the tense, strained, tragic feeling of the
gambling-hell. I was held for a moment in the great
world with its complications, vice and dissipation. It is
one of the mistakes that people make to think that the
East is depraved ; on the contrary the Oriental has a
modesty that the ordinary European would find fantastic.
His virtue is not the same as the European’s, but I think
he is more virtuous. Vice you must look for in Paris,
London or New York, rather than in Benares or Peking.
But whether this is due to the fact that the Oriental, not
being oppressed as we are by the sense of sin, feels no
need to transgress the rules that during the long course
of his history he has found it convenient to make, or
whether, as is shown by his art and literature (which
after all are only complicated, but monotonous variations
on a single theme) he is unimaginative, who am I to say ?

It was time for me to go to bed. I got under my
mosquito curtain, lit my pipe and read the novel which I
kept for that particular moment. I had looked forward
to it all day. It was Du C6ie de Guermantes and in my
fear of coming to the end of it too quickly (I had read it
before and could not really start on it again the moment
I had finished it) I limited myself rigidly to thirty pages
at a time. A great deal of course was exquisitely
boring, but what did I care ? I would sooner be bored
by Proust than amused by anybody else, and I finished
the thirty pages all too soon ; I seemed to have to hold
back my eyes not to run along the lines too quickly. I
put out my lamp and fell into a dreamless sleep.

But I could have sworn I had not been asleep ten
minutes when a cock, crowing loudly, woke me ; and the
various sounds in the compound, first one and then after
a pause another, broke in upon the silence of the night.
The gathering light crept into my room. Another day
began.

XVl

I LOST count of time. The track now could no
longer be called a road and a bullock-cart could not
have gone along it ; it was no more than a narrow path
and we went in single file. We began to climb, and a
river, a tributary of the Salween, ran over rocks boister-
ously below us.‘ The track wound up and down hills
through the defiles of the range we were crossing, now at
the level of the river, and then high above it. The sky
was blue, not with the brilliant, provocative blue of
Italy, but with the Eastern blue, which is milky, pale and
languorous. The jungle now had all the air of the
virgin forest of one’s fancy ; tall trees, rising straight,
without a branch, for eighty or a hundred feet flaunted
their power majestically in the sun. Creepers with
gigantic leaves entwined them and the smaller trees
were covered with parasitic plants as a bride is covered
by her veil. The bamboos were sixty feet high. The
wild plantains grew ever3rwhere. They seemed set in
their places by some skilful gardener, for they had the
air of consciously completing the decoration. They
were magnificent. The lower leaves were torn and
yellow and bedraggled ; they were like wicked old
women who looked with envy and malice on the
beauty of youth ; but the upper ones, lissom, green and
lovely, lifted their splendour proudly. They had the
haughtiness and the callous indifference of youthful

82

83

beauty ; their ample surface took the sun like water.

One day, looking for a short cut, I ventured along a
path that led straight into the jungle. There w'as more
life than I had seen while I kept to the highway ; the
jungle-fowl scurried over the tops of the trees as I passed,
pigeons cooed all about me, and a hornbill sat quite
still on a branch to let me look at it. I can never quite
get over my surprise at seeing at liberty birds and
beasts whose natural habitation seems a Zoological
Garden, and I remember once in a far island away down
in the South East of the Malay Archipelago, when I saw a
great cockatoo staring at me I looked about for the cage
from which it had escaped and could not realise for a
moment that it was at home there and had never known
confinement.

The jungle was not very thick and the sun finding its
bold way through the trees diapered the ground with a
coloured and fantastic pattern. But after a while it
began to dawn on me that I was lost, not seriously and
tragically lost as may happen to one in the jungle, but
astray as one might be in the squares and terraces of
Bayswater ; I did not want to retrace my steps and the
pathway, with the sun shining on it, was tempting : I
thought I would go on a little further and see what
happened. And suddenly I came upon a tiny village ;
it consisted of no more than four or five houses sur-
rounded by a stockade of bamboos. I was as surprised
to find it there, right in the jungle and six or seven
miles from the main road, as its inhabitants must have
been to see me, but neither they nor I would betray
by our demeanour that there was anything odd
about it. Small children playing on the dry, dusty

84

ground scattered at my approach (I remembered how
in one place I was asked if two little boys who had never
seen a white man might be brought to have a look at me
and were promptly carried away screaming with terror
at the revolting sight ) ; but the women, carrying
buckets of water or pounding rice, went on uncon-
cernedly with their tasks ; and the men, sitting on their
verandahs, gave me but an indifferent glance. I won-
dered how those people had found their way there
and what they did ; they were self-subsistent, living a
life entirely of their own, and as much cut oflP from the
outside world as though they dwelt on an atoll in the
South Seas. I knew and could know nothing of them.
They were as different from me as though they belonged
to another species. But they, had passions like mine,
the same hopes, the same desires, the same griefs. To
them, too, I suppose, love came like sunshine after rain,
and to them too, I suppose, came satiety. But for
them the days unchanging added their long line to
one another without haste and without surprise ; they
followed their appointed round and led the lives their
fathers had led before them. The pattern was traced
and all they had to do was to follow it. Was that not
wisdom and in their constancy was there not beauty ?

I urged my pony on and in a few yards I was once more
in the thick of the jungle. I continued to climb, the
path crossing and recrossing little rushing streams, and
then wound down, wound round the hills, the trees
growing upon them so densely that you felt you could
walk upon the tree-tops as though upon a green floor,
until all sunny I saw the plain and the village for which I
was bound that day.

85

It was called Mong Pying and I had made up my
mind to rest there for a little. It was very warm
and in the afternoon I sat in shirt sleeves on the
verandah of the bungalow. I was surprised to see
approaching me a white man. I had not seen one since
I left Taunggj’i. Then I remembered that before
leaving they had told me that somewhere along the road
I should meet an Italian priest. I rose to meet him.
He was a thin man, tall for an Italian, with regular
features and large handsome eyes. His face, sallow
from malaria, was covered almost to the eyes with
a luxuriant black beard that curled as boldly as the
beard of an Assyrian king. And his hair was abundant,
black and curling. I guessed him to be somewhere
between thirty-five and forty. He was dressed in a
shabby black cassock, stained and threadbare, a battered
khaki helmet, white trousers and white shoes.

I heard you were coming,” he said to me. “ Just
think, I haven’t seen a white man for eighteen months.”

He spoke fluent English.

“ What will you have ? ” I asked him. ** I can offer
you whisky, or gin and bitters, tea or coffee.”

He smiled.

“ I haven’t had a cup of coffee for two years. I ran
out of it, and I found I could do without it very well. It
was an extravagance and we have so little money for
this mission. But it is a deprivation.”

I told the Ghurka boy to make him a cup and when he
tasted it his eyes glistened.

** Nectar,” he cried. ” It is real nectar. People
should do without things more. It is only then that you
really enjoy them.”

86

“You must let me give you two or three tins.”

“ Can you spare them ? I will send you some
lettuces from my garden.”

“ But how long have you been here then ? ” I asked.

** Twelve years.”

He was silent for a moment.

“ My brother, who is a priest in Milan, offered to send
me the money to go back to Italy so that I might see my
mother before she died. She is an old woman and she
cannot live much longer. They used to say I was her
favourite son and indeed when I was a child she used to
spoil me. I should have liked to see her once more, but
to tell you the truth I was afraid to go ; I thought that if
I did I should not have the courage to come back here to
my people. Human nature is very weak, do you not
think so ? I could not trust myself.” He smiled and
gave a gesture that was oddly pathetic. “ Never mind,
we shall meet again in Paradise ”

Then he asked me if I had a camera. He was very
anxious to send a photograph of his new church to the
lady in Lombardy through whose pious generosity he
had been able to build it. He took me to it, a great
wooden barn, severe and bare ; the reredos was de-
corated with an execrable picture of Jesus Christ
painted by one of the nuns at Keng Tung, and he
begged me to take a photograph of this also so that
when I went there and visited the convent I could show
the mm how her work looked in place. There were two
little pews for the scanty congregation. He was proud,
as well he might be, because the church, the altar
and the pews had been built by himself and his converts.
He took me to his compound and showed me the modest

87

building which sened as school-room and as sleeping-
quarters for the children in his charge. I think he told
me that there were six and thirty of them. He led
me into his ovm little bungalow. The living-room was
fairly spacious and this till the church was built he
had used also as a chapel. At the back was a tiny
bedroom no larger than a monk’s cell, in which was
nothing but a small wooden bed, a washing-stand and
a book-shelf. Alongside of this was a tiny, rather dirty
and untidy kitchen. There were two women in it.

“ You see I am very grand now, I have a cook and
a kitchen-maid/’ he said.

The younger woman had a hare-lip and, giggling, took
pains to hide it with her hand, llie father said some-
thing to her. The other was' squatting on the ground
pounding some herb in a mortar and he patted her
kindly on the shoulder.

“ They have been here nearly a year now,’’ he said.
** They are mother and daughter. The woman, poor
thing, has a malformed hand and the girl, as you see,
that terrible lip.”

The woman had had a husband and two children
besides the girl with the hare-lip ; but they had died
suddenly, within a few weeks of one another, and the
people of her village, thinking that she was possessed
of an evil spirit, drove her out, her and her daughter,
penniless, into a world of which she knew nothing. She
went to another village in the jungle where lived a
catechist, for she had heard that the Christians did not
fear the spirits, and the catechist was willing to give
her lodging; but he was very poor and could not
provide her with food. He told her to go to the father

G

88

This was a five day journey and it was the beginning
of the rainy season. She and her daughter shouldered
their small possessions, they were no more than they
could carry in a little bundle on their backs, and set
out, walking along the jungle paths, up and down the
hills, and at night they slept in a village if they came
upon one and if not in such resting-place, in the shadow
of a rock or under the branches of a tree, as they found
by the wayside. But the people of the villages through
which they passed sought to dissuade them from their
purpose, for it was well known that the father took
children into his house and after a little while bore them
away to Rangoon where he offered them to the spirit
of the sea and received money for them. They were
terrified, but no village would keep them and the father
was their only refuge. They went on and at last,
desperate but panic-stricken, presented themselves to
him. He told them that they could live in an out-house
and cook the rice for the children in the school.

We went into the living-room and sat down. It was
bare of every sort of comfort. There was a large table
and two or three wooden chairs, straight-backed and
severe ; there were shelves on which were a number of
religious books, paper-bound and musty, and a great
many Catholic periodicals. The only secular book I
saw was that dreary masterpiece I Promessi Sposi,
(When Manzoni met Sir Walter Scott who complimented
him on his work he, acknowledging his debt to the
Waverley Novels, said that it was not his book, but
Sir Walter’s, upon which Sir Walter replied, then it
is my best book. But he spoke from his generous
heart ; it is of an almost intolerable tediousness )

89

But the father received a daily paper from Italy, the
Corriere della arriving in bundles once a month,
and he told me that he read every word of every one.

“ It amuses me/* he said, ** of course, but I do it
also as well, as a spiritual exercise, for I cannot afford
to let my faculties rust. I know everything that is
happening in Italy, what operas they are doing at the
Scala, what plays are given, and what books are pub-
lished. I read the political speeches;. Ever}i:hing.
In that w'ay I keep abreast of the world. My mind
remains active. I do not suppose I shall ever return
to Italy, but if I do I shall step back into my environ-
ment as though I had never been away. In this
kind of life one must never let go of oneself for a
minute.”

He talked fluently, in a resonant voice, and he w'as
quick to smile ; he had a loud and hearty laugh. When
first he came to this place he put up at the P.W.D. bun-
galow and set about learning the language. The rest of
his time he spent building the little house in which I
now sat. Then he went out into the jungle.

” I can do nothing with the Shans,” he told me,
“ They are Buddhists and they are satisfied with
Buddhism, It suits them.” He gave me a deprecating
look of his fine black eyes and with a smile made a
statement that I could see was so bold to his mind
that he was a trifle startled at it himself. “ You know,
one must admit that Buddhism is a beautiful religion.
I have long talks sometimes with the monk at the
Pongyi Chann, he is not an uneducated man, and I
cannot but respect him and his faith.”

He soon discoy^ye^ fhg^ jyg could hope to influence

90

only the people in the little lonely villages in the
jungle, for they were spirit-worshippers and their lives
were perplexed by the unceasing dread of the malignant
powers that lay in wait to ensnare them. But the
villages were far away, in the mountains, and often he
had to go twenty, thirty or even forty miles to reach
them.

“ Do you ride ? " I asked.

“ No, I walk. I don't say I wouldn’t ride if I could
afford a pony, but I am glad to walk. In this country
you need plenty of exercise. I suppose that when I
get old I shall have to have a pony, and by then I may
have the money to buy one, but as long as I am in
the prime of life there is no reason I should not travel
on the legs God gave me.”

It was his custom on arriving at a village to go to
the headman’s house and ask for lodging. When the
people came back in the evening from their work he
gathered them together on the verandah and talked
to them. Now, after all these years, they knew him
for forty miles around and they made him welcome.
Sometimes a message came to ask him to go to some
distant village that he had not yet visited so that they
could hear what he had to say.

I remembered the lonely little village, shut oflP by
the pressing growth of that dense verdure, that I had
come upon in the jungle. I wanted to form in my
mind’s eye some picture of the lives those people led
in it. The father shrugged his shoulders when I
questioned him.

“ They work. Men and women work together. It
is a constant round of unceasing toil. Believe me.

91

life IS not easy in the jungle villages up in the mourt**
tains. The}" sow their rice, and you know what time
and trouble it takes, and then they reap it; they
cultivate opium, and when they have an interval they
go into the jungle to gather the jungle produce. They
do not starve, but they only save themselves from
starvation because they never rest.”

As I wandered through the country, fording rivers
or crossing them by rustic bridges, going up and down
the tree-clad hills, passing between the rice fields, stop-
ping for a night at one village of bamboo houses after
another, talking with that long succession of headmen,
their faces wizened or hardy, I seemed to myself like a
figme in a tapestry that lined the halls of some old,
infinitely deserted palace, an interminable tapestry of
a sombre green in which you see dimly dark stiff
trees and faded streams, hamlets of strange houses
and shadowry people occupied without pause with
actions that have a mystical, hieratic and obscure
significance. But sometimes when I arrived at a village
and the headman and the elders, kneeling on the
ground, gave me their presents, I had seemed to read
in their large dark eyes a strange hunger. They looked
at me humbly, as though they were expecting from
me a message for which they had been long eagerly
waiting. I wished that I could make them a discourse
that would stir them ; I wished that 1 could deliver
to them the glad tidings for which they seemed to
hanker. I could tell them nothing of a Beyond of
which I knew nothing. The priest at least could give
them something. I saw him arriving, footsore and
weary, at some village, and when the approach of

92

night prevented the people from working any longed,
sitting on the floor on the verandah, lit by the moon
perhaps, but perhaps only by the stars, and telling
them, silent shadows in»the darkness, things strange
and new.

I do not think he was a very intellectual man ; he
had character, of course, and shrewdness. He knew
quite well that the hill Shans let their children come
to him only because he clothed, lodged and fed them,
but he shrugged his shoulders tolerantly; they would
return to their hills when they were of a proper age,
and though some would revert to the savage beliefs
of their fathers, others would retain the faith he had
taught them and by their influence perhaps lighten
the darkness that surrounded them. He led too busy
a life to have much time for reflection, and certainly
there was in his mind no mystical strain ; his faith
was strong, as an athlete’s arms are muscular, and
he accepted the dogmas of his religion as unquestion-
ingly as you and I accept the fact of single vision
or the flushing cheek. He told me that he had had
a desire to come to the East as a missionary when he
was still a seminarist and had studied in Milan to that
end. He showed me a photograph of the group, sitting
round the bishop, who had come out with him, twelve
of them, and pointed out to me those that were dead.
This one had been drowned crossing a river in Cliina,
that one had died of cholera in India, and the other
had been killed by the wild Was up in the north of the
Shan States. I asked him when he had sailed and
without a moment’s hesitation he gave me the day of
the week, the day of the month and the year ; what-

93

ever aimiversaries they may forget, thei>e nuns, monks
and secular priests, the date on which they left Europe
remains on the tip of their tongues. Then he showed
me a photograph of his family, a typical group of lower
middle-class people, such as you may see in the window
of any cheap photographer in Italy. They w'ere stiff,
formal and self-conscious, the father and mother
sitting in the middle in their best clothes, two younger
children arranged on the floor at their feet, a daughter
on each side of them and behind, standing according
to their heights, a row of sons. The priest pointed out
to me those that had entered religion.

“ More than half,*’ I commented.

“ It has been a great happiness to our mother,” he
said. “ It is her doing.”

She was a stout woman, in a black dress, with her
hair parted in the middle and large, soft eyes. She
looked like a good housekeeper and I had little doubt
that when it came to buying and selling she could drive
a hard bargain. The priest smiled affectionately.

” She is a wonderful creature, my mother, she has
had fifteen children and eleven of them are still alive.
She is a saint, and goodness is as natural to her as a
fine voice is to a cantairice ; it is no more difficult for
her to do a beautiful action than it was for Adelina
Patti to take C in alt. CaraJ’

He put the photograph back on the table.

When the next day but one I set out again the father
said he would walk with me till we came to the hills
and so, slinging my pony’s bridle over my arm, w^e
trudged along while he gave me messages for the nxms
at Keng Tung and impressed upon me not to forget

94

to send him prints of the photographs I had taken.
He walked with his gun on his shoulder, an old weapon
that looked to me much more dangerous to himself
than to the beasts of the field ; he was an odd figure
in his battered helmet and his black cassock trussed
up round his waist in order not to impede his gait, his
white trousers tucked into his heavy boots. He walked
with a long slow stride and I could well imagine that
the miles sagged away under it. But presently his
sharp eyes caught sight of a kingfisher that sat on
the low branch of a tree, green and blue, a little
quivering, beautiful thing, poised there for a moment
like a living gem ; the father put his hand on my arm
to stop me and crept forward very softly, noiselessly,
till he got to within ten feet ; then he fired and when
the bird dropped he sprang forward with a cry of
triumph and picking it up threw it in the bag he carried
slung to his side.

“ That will help to make my rice tasty,*' he said

But we reached the jungle and he stopped again.

“ I shall leave you here,” he said. “ I must get
back to my work.”

I mounted my pony, we shook hands, and I trotted
off. I turned back when I came to a bend of the
path and waved as I saw him still standing where I
had left him. He had his hand on the trunk of a tall
tree and the green of the forest surrounded him. I
went on and soon, I suppose, with that heavy tread of
his that seemed not to spurn the earth but to stamp
upon it with a jovial energy, as though it were friendly
and would take his affectionate violence in good part
(like a great strong dog who wags his tail when you

95

give him a hearty slap on the buttock) soon, I suppose
he trudged back to the life from which for a day or
two I had lured him, I knew that I should never see
him again. I was going on to I knew' not what new
experiences and presently I should return to the great
w’orld with its excitement and vivid changes, but he
would remain there always.

Much time has passed since then and sometimes, at
a party when women, their cheeks painted, with pearls
round their necks, sit listening to a broad-bosomed
prima donna singing the songs of Schumann or at a
first night when the curtain falls after an act and the
applause is loud, and the audience bursts into amused
conversation, my thoughts go back to the Italian priest,
a little older now and greyer, a little thiimer, for since
then he has had two or three bouts of fever, who is
jogging up the Shan hills along the forest paths, the
same to-day and to-morrow as when I left him ; and
so it will be till one day, old and broken, he is taken ill
in one of those little mountain villages, and too weak
to be moved down to the valley is presently overtaken
by death. They will bury him in the jungle, with a
wooden cross over him, and perhaps (the beliefs of
generations stronger than the new faith he had taught)
they will put little piles of stone about his grave and
flowers so that his spirit may be friendly to the people
of the village in which he died. And I have sometimes
wondered whether at the end, so far from his kin, the
headman of the village and the elders sitting round him
silently, fnghtened to see a white man die, whether
in a last moment of lucidity (those strange brown faces
bending over him) fear wall seize him and doubt, so

that he will look beyond death and see that there is
nothing but annihilation and whether then he will have
a feeling of wild revolt because he has given up for
nothing all that the world has to offer of beauty, love
and ease, friendship and art and the pleasant gifts of
nature, or whether even then he will think his brave
life of toil and abnegation and endurance worth while.
It must be a terrifying moment for those whom faith
has sustained and supported all their lives, the moment
when they must finally know whether their belief was
true. Of course he had a vocation. His faith was
robust and it was as natural to him to beheve as to us
to breathe. He was no saint to work miracles and no
mystic to endure the pain and the ineffable pleasure
of union with the Godhead, bnt as it were the common
labourer of God. The souls of men were like the fields
of his native Lombardy and without sentimentality,
without emotion even, taking the rough with the
smooth, he ploughed them and sowed, he protected
the growing corn from the birds, he took advantage of
the sunshine and grumbled because the rain was too
much or too little, he shrugged his shoulders when the
yield was scanty and took it as his due when it was
abundant. He looked upon himself as a wage-earner
hke any other (but his wages were the glory of God
and a world without end), and it gave him a sort of
satisfaction to feel that he earned his keep. He gave
the people his heart, and made no more fuss about it
than did his father when he sold macaroni over the
counter of his little shop in the Milanese,

I ENTERED upon the last lap of the journey to
Keng Tung. For two or three days I went along
the valleys by a level path, with a pretty stream
flowing by the side of it ; on its banks grew huge
trees and now and again I saw a nimble monke\^ leaping
from branch to branch ; then I began to climb. I had
to cross the divide between the basins of the Salween
and the Mehkong and soon it grew very cold. Up
and up we went. In the morning the mist swathed
the surrounding hills, but here and there their tops
emerged from it so that they looked like little green
islets in a grey sea. The sun shining on the mist made
a rainbow, and it was like the bridge that led to the
gate of some fairy region of the underv'orld. A bitter
wind blew around those bleak heights, and soon I was
chilled to the bone. The mule track was muddy and
very slippery, so that my pony kept his feet with
difficulty and dismounting I walked. The mist was
heavy now, and I could see but a few yards in firont
of me. The bell on the leader of my caravan was
muffled and plaintive and the muleteers shivering
trudged along by their beasts’ sides in silence. The
path wound through one defile after another, and at
each bend I thought I had reached the pass, but the
way still went uphill and it seemed interminable.
Then suddenly I found myself sloping down. I had

97

crossed the pass, which had needed so prolonged an
effort to reach, without noticing it ; it gave me a slight
shock of disillusion. So when you have spent all your
labour to achieve some ambition and have achieved it,
it seems nothing to you and you go on somewhither
without any sense of a great thing accomplished. And
it may be that death is hke that also. I should add that
this pass being no more than seven thousand feet high,
to reach it was perhaps not so extraordinary a feat as
to merit these pregnant reflections.

A similar incident occurred to Mr. Wordsworth when
with his friend, Mr. Jones {Jones ^ as from Calais South-
ward you and I) he crossed the Alps ; but being a poet
he wrote :

. . . whether we he young or old,

Our destiny, our being* s heart and home.

Is with infinitude, and only there ;

With hope it is, hope that can never die.

Effort, and expectation, and desire,

And something ever more about to be.

So simple is it when you know just how to put the
best words in the best order to achieve beauty. The
elephant can with his trunk pick up a sixpence and
uproot a tree.

Then I came to a point from which they told me I
could see Keng Tung, but the whole country was
bathed in a silvery vapour and though I strained my
eyes I could see nothing. I wound down and down
and gradually emerged from the mountain mist and
the sun was warm on my back. In the afternoon I
came into the plain. The hills I had left were dark
and the grey clouds were entangled in the trees that

99

clad them. I trotted along a straight road, wide enough
for a bullock w’agon, 'with rice fields, now only a brown
and dusty stubble, on each side ; I passed peasants with
loads on their backs, or suspended on bamboos, going
to tow’n for the market next day ; and at last I reached
a broken brick gate'way. It was the gate of Keng
Tung. I had been twenty-six days on the journey.

Here I was met by a magistrate, a stoutish man of
dignified aspect but of friendly reception, riding a
mettlesome white pony, and some other official, who
had come to greet me on behalf of the Sawbwa, the
chieftain of that state. After vre had exchanged the
proper civilities we rode on through the main street
of the to'wn (but as the houses stood each in its com-
pound with trees gro'wing in it, it had no air of a street
but rather of a road in a garden suburb), till we came
to the circuit-house, at which I was to lodge. This w-as
a long brick bungalow, placed on a hill without the
town, whitewashed, with a verandah in front of it, and
from the verandah I saw among trees the brown roofs
of Keng Tung. All round were the green hills that
surround it.

k

XVIII

I RODE down to the market on my little Shan
pony. It was held on a great flat space in which
were four rows of open booths and here the people
j ostled one another in a serried throng. I had wandered
so long through country almost uninhabited that I was
dazzled by the variety and the colour of the crowd.
The sun shone brightly. In the wayside villages the
peasants were dressed in sombre hues, in blue or
maroon, and often in black, but here the colours were
brilliant. The women were neat and small and pretty,
with flattened faces, and sallow rather than swarthy,
but their hands were beautiful, as delicate as the flowers
they wore in their hair, and finely attached to their
slender wrists. They were dressed in a sort of skirt,
called a lungyi, a long strip of silk wound round and
tucked in at the waist, the upper part of which was in
stripes of gay colours and the lower part pale green,
maroon or black, and they wore a little white bodice,
very neat and modest, and over this a padded jacket,
pale green or pink or black, like a Spanish bolero, with
tight sleeves and little wings on the shoulders which
suggested that at any moment they might fly smilingly
away. The men wore colomed lungyis too or baggy
Shan trousers. And a great many wore huge hats of
finely plaited straw, like candle extinguishers, with
enormous curved brims, and they perched uneasily on

101

the abundant hair and handkerchiefs of men and women
These extravagant hats, hundreds of them, swaying,
bobbing up and do\^Ti, with the restless movements of
their wearers, were so fantastic that you could not
persuade yourself that these people were busy with
the serious affairs of life, but rather, engaged in a frolic^
were having an enormous joke with one another
As is usual in the East the sellers of the same things
congregated together. The stalls were merely tiled
roofs on posts, speaking well for the clemency of the
climate, and the floor was either the trodden earth or
a very low wooden platform. The selling was done
for the most part by women; there were generally
three or four of them in each stall, and they sat smoking
long green cheroots. But in the medicine stalls the
vendors were very old men, with wrinkled faces and
blood-shot eyes, who looked like wizards. I observ^ed
their wares with consternation. There were piles of
dried herbs and large boxes of powders of various
colours, blue, yellow, red and green, and I could not
but think he must be a brave man who ventured upon
them. In my childhood I have been beguiled into
taking a dose of salts under the impression that as a
reward for virtue I was being treated to a spoonful of
plum jam (and have never been able to stomach plum
jam since), but I cannot imagine how a fond Shan
mother would conceal from her little Shan boy that
she was administering to him a large handful of a
gritty emerald powder. There were pills so large that
I asked myself what throat was ever so capacious as
to be able to wash them down with a drink of water.
There were small dried animals that looked like the

roots of plants that had been dug out of the ground
and left to rot, and there were roots of plants that
looked like small dried animals. But the aged apothe-
caries suffered from no lack of custom. Trade was
brisk that morning, and they were kept busy weighing
out drugs, not with the flaky weights we use at home
but with large pieces of lead cast in the form of the
Buddha. At last my patience was rewarded, and
having seen a man buy a dozen pills as large as bantam’s
eggs, I watched him take one in finger and thumb,
open his mouth, drop it in and swallow. There was a
struggle, for a moment his face bore a strained look,
then he gave himself a j erk, and the pill was gone. The
apothecary watched him with rheumy eyes.

XIX

IN the market was to be found everything to eat,
to wear, and to furnish his house that was necessary
to the needs of the simple Shan. There were
silks from China, and the Chinese hucksters, sedately
smoking their water pipes, were dressed in blue trousers,
tight-fitting black coats and black silk caps. ITiey were
not lacking in elegance. The Chinese are the aris-
tocracy of the East. There were Indians in white
trousers, a white tunic that fitted closely to their thin
bodies and round caps of black velvet. They sold soap
and buttons, and flimsy Indian silks, rolls of Manchester
cotton, alarm clocks, looking-glasses and knives from
Sheffield. The Shans retailed the goods brought down
by the tribesmen from the surrounding hills and the
simple products of their own industry. Here and there
a little band of musicians occupied a booth and a crowd
stood round idly listening. In one three men beat on
gongs, one played the cymbals and another thumped
a drum as long as himself. My uneducated ear could
discern no pattern in that welter of sound, but only a
direct and not unexhilarating appeal to crude emotion ;
but a little further on I came across another band, not
of Shans this time but of hillmen, who played on long
wind instruments of bamboo and their music was
melancholy and tremulous. Every now and then I
seemed in its vague monotony to catch a few notes of

105 H

104

a wistful melody. It gave you an impression of some-
thing immensely old. Every violence of statement
had been worn away from it and every challenge to an
energetic reaction, and there remained but subdued
suggestions on which the imagination might work and
references, as it were, to desires and hopes and despairs
deep buried in the heart. You had the feeling of a
music recollected at loight by the camp-fires of nomad
tribes on their wanderings from the grass-lands of their
ancient homes and begotten of the scattered sounds of
the jungle and the silence of flowing rivers ; and to
my fancy (worked up now, as is the writer’s way, by^
the power of the words, so difficultly controlled, that
throng upon his imagination) it suggested the perplexity
in the midst of strange and hostile surroundings of men
who came they knew not whence and went they knew
not whither, a plaintive, questioning cry and a song
sung together (as men at sea in a storm tell one another
lewd stories to drive away the uneasiness of the battering
waves and the howling wind) to reassure themselves
by the blessed solace of human companionship against
the loneliness of the world.

But there was nothing doleful or forlorn in the throng
that crowded the streets of the market. They were
gay, voluble and blithe. They had come not only to
buy and sell, but to gossip and pass the time of day
with their friends. It was the meeting-place not only
of Keng Tung, but of the whole countryside for fifty
miles around. Here they got the news and heard the
latest stories. It was as good as a play and doubtless
much better than most. Among the Shans, who were
in the majority, wandered in their distinctive costumes

105

members of many tribes. They held together in Bttle
groups as though, feeling shy in this foreign environ-
ment, they were afraid of being parted from one
another. To them it must have seemed a vast and
populous city, and they kept themseh es to themselves
with the countrjroan^s odd mingling of awe and con-
tempt for the inhabitants of a city. There were Tais,
Laos, Kaws, Palaungs, Was and hea\eu knows what
else. The Was are divided by people wise in these
matters into wild and tame, but the wild ones do not
leave their mountain fastnesses. They are head-
hunters, not from vainglory like the Dyaks, nor for
aesthetic reasons like the people of the Mambw’e country,
but for the purely utilitarian purpose of protecting
their crops. A fresh skuU will guard and strengthen
the growing grain, and so at the approach of spring
from each village a small party of men goes out to
look for a likely stranger. A stranger is sought
since he does not know his way about the country
and his spirit will not wander away from his earthly
remains. It is said that travel in those parts is far
from popular during the hunting season. But the
tame Was have the air of amiable and kindly people
and certainly their appearance, though wild enough,
is picturesque. The Kaws stand out from among the
others by reason of their fine physique and swarthy
colour- The authorities, however, state that the
darkness of their complexion is due for the most part
to their dislike of the use of water. The women w^ear
a headdress covered with silver beads so that it looks
like a helmet ; their hair is parted in the middle and
comes down over the ears as one sees it in the portraits

106

of the Empress Eugenie, and in middle age they have
funny little wrinkled faces full of humour. They wear
a short coat, a kilt and leggings ; and there is quite
an interval between the coat and the kilt : I could
not fail to notice how much character it gives a woman’s
face to display her navel. The men are dressed in
dingy blue, with turbans, and in these the young lads
put marigolds as a sign that they are bachelors and
want to marry. I wondered indeed if they kept them
there or only put them in when the urge was strong
upon them. For presumably no one feels inclined to
marry on a cold and frosty morning. I saw one with
half a dozen flowers in his turban He was not going
to leave his intentions in doubt. He cut a gay and
jaunty figure, but the girls seemed to take no more
notice of him than he, I am bound to confess, took of
them. Perhaps they thought his eagerness was
exaggerated and he, I suppose, having put his adver-
tisement in the paper, as it were, was willing to leave
it at that. He was a pleasant creature, of a dusky
complexion, with large dark eyes, bold and shining,
and he stood, with his back a trifle arched, as though
all his muscles quivered with strength. There were
peasants threading their way among the throng with
pigeons on a perch tied by the leg with a string, which
you might either buy to release and so acquire
merit or add to the next day’s curry. One of these
men passing him the young Kaw, evidently a careless
fellow with his money, on a sudden impulse (and you
saw on his mobile face how unexpectedly it came
into his head) bought a pigeon, and when it was
given to him he held it for a moment in both his

107

hands, a grey wood pigeon with a pink breast, and
then throwing up his arms with the gesture of the
bronze boy from Herculaneum flung it high into the
air. He watched it fly rapidly away, fly back to its
native w'oods, and there was a bo\ish smile on his
handsome face.

I SPENT the best part of a week in Keng Tung.
The days were warm and sunny and the circuit-
house neat, clean and roomy. After so many
strenuous days on the road it was pleasant to have
nothing much to do. It was pleasant not to get up
till one felt inclined and to breakfast in pyjamas. It
was pleasant to lounge through the morning with a
book. For it is an error to think that because you
have no train to catch and no appointments to keep
your movements on the road are free. Your times for
doing this and that are as definite as if you lived in a
city and had to go to business every morning. Your
movements are settled not by your own whim, but by
the length of the stages and the endurance of the
mules. Though you would not think it mattered if
you arrived half an hour sooner or later at your day's
destination, there is always a rush to get up in the
morning, a bustle of preparation and an urgent com-
pulsion to get off without delay.

I kept the emotion with which Keng Tung filled me
well under control. It was a village, larger than those
I had passed on the way, but a village notwithstanding,
of wooden houses, spacious, with wide dirt streets, and
I was put to it to find objects of interest to visit. On
other than market days it was empty. In the main
street you saw nothing but a few gaunt pariah dogs.

109

In one or two shops a woman, smoking a cheroot, sat
idly on the floor ; she had no thought that on such a day
there would e\er be a customer ; in another four China-
men crouched on their heels were gambling. Silence.
The du«^ty road had great ruts in it, and the sun beat
down on it flrom a clear blue sky. Three little women
suddenly appeared in monstrous, diverting hats and
passed along in single file ; they had a couple of
baskets suspended by a bamboo over the shoulder and
they walked with bent knees, speedily*, as though if
they went more slowly they would sink under their
burdens. And against the emptiness of the street they
made a quick and evanescent pattern.

x^ind there was silence too in the monasteries. There
are perhaps a dozen of them in Keng Tung and their
high roofs stand out when you look at the town from
the little hill on which is the circuit-house. Each one
stands in its compound and in the compound are a
number of crumbling pagodas. The great hall in which
the Buddha, enormous, sits in his hieratic attitude,
surrounded by others, eight or ten, hardly smaller, is
like a bam, but its roof is supported by huge columns
of teak, gilt or lacquered, and the wooden walls and
the rafters are gilt or lacquered too. Rude paintings
of scenes in the Master's life hang from the eaves.
It is dark and solemn, but the Buddhas sit on their
great lotus leaves in the gloaming like gods who have
had their day, and now neglected, but indifferent to
neglect, an their decaying grandeur of gilt and mosaic
continue to reflect on suffering and the end of suffering,
transitoriness and the eightfold path. Their aloofness
is almost terrifying. You tread on tiptoe in order not

to disturb their meditations and when you close behind
you the carved and gilded doors and come out once
more into the friendly day it is with a sigh of relief.
You feel like a man who has gone by accident to a
party at the wrong house and on realising his mistake
makes his escape quickly and hopes that no one has
noticed him

XXI

Musing upon the odd chance that had brought
me to that distant spot, my idle thoughts
gathered about the talL aloof figure of the
casual acquaintance whose words spoken at random
had tempted me to make the journey- I tried from
the impressions he had left upon me to construct the
living man. For when we meet people we see them
only in the flat, they offer us but one side of themselves,
and they remain shadowy ; we have to give them our
flesh and our bones before they exist in the round.
That is why the characters of fiction are more real than
the characters of life. He was a soldier and for five
years had been in command of the Military Police Post
at Loimwe, which is a few miles south-east of Keng
Tung. Loimwe signifies the Hill of Dreams.

I do not think he was a great hunter, for I have
noticed tiiat most men who live in places where game
is plentiful acquire a distaste for killing the wild
creatures of the jungle. When on their arrival they
have shot this animal or that, the tiger, the buffalo or
the deer, for the satisfaction of their self-esteem, they
lose interest. It suggests itself to them that the
graceful creatures, whose habits they have studied,
have as much right to life as they ; they get a sort
of affection for them, and it is only unwillingly that
they take their guns to kill a tiger that is j&ighten-

lU

112

ing the villagers, or woodcock or snipe for the pot.

Five years is a big slice out of a man’s life. He
spoke of Keng Tung as a lover might speak of his bride.
It had been an experience so poignant that it had set
him apart for ever from his fellows. He was reticent,
and as is the English way could tell but in clumsy words
what he had found there. I do not know whether
even to himself he was able to put into plain language
the vague emotions that touched his heart when in a
secluded village at night he sat and talked with the
elders and whether he asked himself the questions,
so new and strange to one of his circumstances and
profession, that stood in silence (like homeless men in
winter outside a refuge for the destitute) waiting to be
answered. He loved the wild wooded hills and the
starry nights. The days were interminable and
monotonous, and on them he embroidered a vague
and misty pattern. I do not know what it was. I
can only guess that it made the world he went back to,
the world of clubs and mess-tables, of steam-engines
and motor cars, dances and tennis-parties, politics,
intrigue, bustle, excitement, the world of the news-
papers, strangely without meaning. Though he lived
in it, though he even enjoyed it, it remained utterly
remote. I think it had lost its sense for him. In his
heart was the reflection of a lovely dream that he could
never quite recall.

We are gregarious, most of us, and we resent the man
who does not seek the society of his fellows. We do
not content ourselves with saying that he is odd, but
we ascribe to him unworthy motives. Our pride is
wounded thjsit he should have no use for us and we nod

IIS

to one another and wink and say that if he lives in
this strange way it must be to practise some secret
vice and if he does not inhabit his own country it can
only be because his own countrv" is too hot to hold him*
But there are people who do not feel at home in the
world, the companionship of others is not necessary
to them and they are ill-at-ease amid the exuberance
of their fellows. They have an imincible shyness.
Shared emotions abash them. The thought of com-
munity singing, even though it be but God Save
the King, fills them with embarrassment, and if they
sing it is plaintively in their baths. They are self-
sufficient and they shrug a resigned and sometimes,
it must be admitted, a scornful shoulder because the
world uses that adjective in a depreciatory sense.
Wherever they are they feel themselves “ out of it.**
They are to be found all over the surface of this earth,
members of a great monastic order bound by no vows
and cloistered though not by walls of stone. If you
wander up and down the world you wiU meet them in
all sorts of unexpected places. You are not surprised
when you hear that an elderly English lady is living
in a villa on a hill outside a small Italian town that you
have happened on by an accident to the car in which
you were driving, for Italy has always been the preferred
refuge of these staid nuns. They have generally
adequate means and an extensive knowledge of the
cinque cento* You take it as a matter of course when
a lonely hcxienda is pointed out to you in Andalusia
and you are told that there has dwelt for many years
an English lady of a certain age. She is usually a
devout Catholic and sometimes lives in sin with her

114

coachman. But it is more surprising when you hear
that the only white person in a Chinese city is an
Englishwoman, not a missionary, who has lived there,
none knows why, for a quarter of a century ; and there
is another who inhabits an islet in the South Seas and
a third who has a bungalow on the outskirts of a large
village in the centre of Java. They live solitary lives,
without friends, and they do not welcome the stranger.
Though they may not have seen one of their own race
for months they will pass you on the road as though
they ^d not see you, and if, presuming on your
nationality, you call, the chances are that they will
decline to receive you ; but if they do they will give
you a cup of tea from a silver tea-pot and on a plate of
old Worcester you will be offered hot scones. They
will talk to you poHtely, as though they were enter-
taining you in a drawing-room overlooking a London
square, but when you take your leave they express no
desire ever to see you again.

The men are at once shyer and more friendly. At
first they are tongue-tied and you see the anxious look
on their faces as they rack their brains for topics of
conversation, but a glass of whisky loosens their minds
(for sometimes they are inclined to tipple) and then
they will talk freely. They are glad to see you, but
you must be careful not to abuse your welcome ; they
get tired of company very soon and grow restless at
the necessity of making an effort. They are more apt
to run to seed than women, they live in a higgledy-
piggledy manner, indifferent to their surroundings and
their food. They have often an ostensible occupation.
They keep a little shop, but do not care whether they

115

sell anything, and their goods are dusty and fly-blown ;
or they run, with lackadaisical incompetence, a cocoanut
plantation. They are on the verge of bankruptcy.
Sometimes they are engaged in metaphysical specula-
tion, and I met one who had spent years in the study
and annotation of the works of Immanuel Swedenborg
Sometimes they are students and take endless pains to
translate classical works which have been already
translated, like the dialogues of Plato, or of which
translation is impossible, like Goethe’s Faust They
may not be very useful members of societ}^ but their
lives are harmless and innocent. If the world despises
them they on their side despise the world. The
thought of returning to its turmoil is a nightmare to
them. They ask nothing but to be left in peace.
Their satisfaction with their lot is sometimes a trifle
irritating. It needs a good deal of philosophy not to
be mortified by the thought of persons who have
voluntarily abandoned everything that for the most of
us makes life worth living and are devoid of envy of
what they have missed, I have never made up my
mind whether they are fools or wise men. They have
given up everything for a dream, a dream of peace or
happiness or freedom, and their dream is so intense
that they make it true.

4

XXII

But I had idled long enough and so, bright and
early one morning, I set out with my caravan
from Keng Tung, I was accompanied by an
official of the Sawbwa’s court who was to escort me to
the jfrontier of the Sawbwa’s donoinions. He was a
corpulent gentleman and he rode a very small and
scraggy pony. For the first day I rode through the
plain with rice-fields on either side of the road and then
plunged once more into the hills. I had finished now
with the P.W.D. bungalows, but the Sawbwa had been
good enough to order houses to be built for me on the
way and messengers had been sent on to the various
villages with the necessary instructions. I felt very
grand to have a house built for me to spend a single
night in and the first one I lodged at filled me with
delight. It was like a toy. It would hardly have kept
out the wet if it rained or the wind if it blew, but in
fine weather it was a place for young lovers to live in
rather than a middle-aged writer. It was very neat
and clean, for the bamboos of which it was made had
been cut that morning, and it had the pleasant, fresh
smell of growing things. It was all green, walls, floor
and roof. It consisted of two rooms and a broad
verandah. The walls and the floor, raised about three
feet from the ground, were of split bamboos. The
supporting pillars and the beams were of whole bamboos,

1x6

11?

and the roof was neatly thatched with rice straw. The
floor was resilient so that, accustomed to an unyielding
surface underfoot, I had at drat a feeling of some
insecurity and walked gingerly ; but there was a net-
work of solid bamboos under it and it was really as
strong as could be desired. Within a few feet was a
rushing mountain stream (I had crossed it half-a-dozen
times during the day either by a ford or a rickety
bridge) and its banks were thickly grown with trees.
In front was a little open space where cattle grazed
and the view -was shut in by a green hill. It was an
enchanting spot.

One day, the letter sent on ahead to arrange accom-
modation having been received but that morning, on
arriving at the end of the stage I found the villagers,
gathered from a village some miles off, for this was in
the middle of the jungle, still busy with the construction
of my house. It was of course very curious to watch
the speed and deftness with which with their rude
knives they cut and split the bamboos in order to make
the floor, the ingenuity with which they fitted the
rafters and the neatness with which they thatched the
roof; but it did not interest me. I was tired and
hungry, I wanted a cook-house so that my dinner
could be prepared, and I wanted a place for my bed
so that I could lie down and rest. I lost my temper
and my commonsense. I sent for the Sawbwa’s ofiicial
and abused him roundly for his slackness. I vowed I
would send him back to his master and threatened him
with every sort of punishment my angry imagination
could devise. I would not listen to his excuses. I
stamped and raved. Now no one had ever troubled

in my life before to treat me with such consideration
and though I have travelled much in out-of-the-way
parts of the world I have had to shift for myself and
lodge at haphazard wherever I could find a lodging.
I have slept quite happily for seven days in an open
rowing-boat and in South Sea islands shared a native
hut open to the wind and rain with a family of Kanakas.
No one had even thought of building a house for me,
and in the middle of the jungle besides, and it was an
attention to which I had no right. The moral is that
even the most sensible person can very easily get above
himself : grant him certain privileges and before you
know where you are he will claim them as his inahenable
right ; lend him a little authority and he will play the
tyrant. Give a fool a uniform and sew a tab or two
on his tunic and he thinks that his word is law.

But when my house was finished, a green house in
a green glade with the torrent plashing noisily between
its green banks, and I had eaten, I laughed at myself.
At Keng Tung I had bought some rum off a Ghurka
when I discovered that my supply of gin was running
low and feared that I should have to finish my journey
on tea and coffee ; it was good rum, home-made, but
I did not like it ; so to mark the sincere contrition I
felt for having behaved with so little sense I sent the
Sawbwa’s official two bottles.

XXIII

IN reading the books of explorers I have been very
much struck by the fact that they never tell you
what they eat and drink unless they are driven to
extremities and shoot a deer or a buffalo that re-
plenishes their larder when they have drawTi in their
belts to the last hole ; or are so much in want of water
that their pack animals are dying and it is only by the
merest chance that at the very last moment they come
across a well, or by the exercise of the most ingenious
ratiocination hit upon a spot where in the evening and
the distance they see a shining that tells them that
after a few’ more weary miles they will find ice to
quench their thirst. Then a look of relief crosses their
set grim faces and perchance a grateful tear courses
down their unwashed cheeks. But I am no explorer
and my food and drink are sufficiently important
matters to me to persuade me in these pages to dwell
on them at some length. I keep a pleasant place in my
memory for the durwan of a bungalow on the way to
Keng Tung who brought me with obsequious gestures
a lordly dish covered with a napkin, removing which
he craved my acceptance of two large cabbages. I had
eaten no green vegetables for a fortnight and they
tasted to me more delicious than peas fresh from a
Surrey garden or young asparagus from Argenteuil.
It is a charming sight and wonderfully exalting to the

119

I

120

soul, when you ride wearily into a village, to come
upon a duck-pond on which are swimming fat ducks,
unconscious of the fact that next day one of them, the
fattest, the youngest, the most tender, with baked
potatoes and abundant gravy is destined (who can escape
his fate ?) to make you a succulent dinner. Late in the
afternoon, just before the sun is setting, you take an
easy stroll and a little way from the compound you
catch sight of two green pigeons flying about the trees.
They run along the pathway, seeming playfully to chase
each other, they are tame and friendly, and unless you
have a heart of stone you cannot but be touched by the
sight of them. You reflect on the innocence and bliss
of their lives. You remember vaguely the fable of
La Fontaine which in your childhood you learned by
heart and shyly repeated when visitors came to see
your mother.

Deux pigeons s*amaient d' amour tendre.

Dun d'euXi s*ennuyant au logis
Fut assess fou pour entreprendre
Un voyage en lointain pays^

The charming and obscene Lawrence Sterne would
have been moved to tears by the sight of the dainty
creatures and he would have written a passage that
would have wrung your heart. But you are made of
sterner stuff. You have a gun in your hands and
though you are a bad shot they are an easy mark. In
a little while the native who has accompanied you holds
them in his hand, but he is unconcerned and sees
nothing pathetic in those pretty little birdst but a
moment ago so full of life, dead before him. How good
they are, fat, succulent and juicy, when Bang Lai, the

121

Gurkha, brings them ro«i*»ted to a turn tor your breakfast
next morning !

My cook was a Telegu, a man of mature age ; his
face, of a dark mahogany, -was thin, ravaged and lined,
and his thick hair was dully streaked with silver. He
was very lean, a tall, saturnine creature of a striking
appearance in his white turban and white tunic. He
walked with long strides and a swinging step, covering
the twelve to fourteen miles of the day’s march without
fatigue or edbrt. It startled me at first to see this
bearded and dignified person nimbly shin up a tree
in the compound and shake down the fruit he needed
for some sauce. Like many another artist liis person-
ality was more interesting than his work ; his cooking
was neither good nor varied, one day he gave me trifle
for my dinner and the next cabinet pudding: they
are the staple sweets of the East, and as one sees them
appear on table after table, made by a Japanese at
Kyoto, a Chinese at Amoy, a Malay at Alor Star or
a Madrassi at Mulmein, one’s sympathetic heart feels
a pang at the thought of the drab live^ of those English
ladies in country vicarages or seaside villas (with the
retired Colonel their father) who introduced them to
the immemorial East. My own knowledge of these
matters is small, but I made so bold as to teach my
Telegu how to make a corned beef hash. I trusted
that after he left me he would pass on the precious
recipe to other cooks and that eventually one more
dish would be added to the scanty repertory of Anglo-
Eastern cuisine. I should be a benefactor of my
species.

It had occurred to me that the cook-house was very

disorderly and none too clean, but in these matters it
is unwise to be squeamish ; when you think of all the
disagreeable things that go on in your inside it seems
absux'd to be too particular about the way in which
is prepared what you put into it. It must be accepted
that from a kitchen that is neat and shining like a new
pin you do not often get food that is very good to eat.
But I was taken aback when Rang Lai came to me
with complaints that the Telegu was so dirty that no
one could eat what he prepared. I went into the cook-
house again and saw for myself ; it was impossible not
to notice also that my cook was very much the worse
for liquor. I was told then that he was often so drunk
that Rang Lai had to do the cooking himself. We were
a fortnight’s journey from any place where I might
have replaced him, so I contented myself vdth such
vituperation (not very effective since it had to be
translated into Burmese which he understood but little)
as I was master of. I think the most biting thing
I said was that a drunken cook should at least be a
good one, but he merely looked at me with large
mournful eyes. He did not wince. At Keng Tung
he went on a terrific spree and did not appear for three
days ; I looked about for someone to take his place,
for I had four weeks’ journey ahead of me before I
could reach the rail-head in Siam, but there was no
one to be found, so when he reappeared very sorry
for himself and woe-begone, I assumed the part of one
who is cut to the quick, but magnanimous. I forgave
him and he promised that for the rest of the journey
he would abstain One should be tolerant of the vices
of others.

Now, pa^^sing thr > igh tn* 1 liad oftfn «ic*en

little pig^ ^currying ^t>out the on which tlie houses
were built and about a week aftt*r I left Keng Tung it
occurred to me that a sucking-pig would make a
pleasant change io my daily fare ; so f gci\e instructions
to buy one at the next opportunity, and one day on
arriving at tin* bungalow I was shown a little black
pig lyirti at the bottom of a basket. It did not look
more than a week old. For a few da\s it w’as carried
in its basket from stage to stage by a young Chinese
boy I had engaged at Keng Tung to help my drunken
cook, and the boy and Rang Lai played with it. It
was a pet. I meant to keep it for a special occasion
and often, as I rode along, I indulged in a pleasing
reverie on the excellent dinner it would make ; I could
not hope for apple sauce, but my mouth w’atered at
the thought of the crackling, and I told myself that the
flesh would be sw’eet and tender. Anxiously I asked
the Telegu if he w'as quite certain he knew how to cook
it. He swore by the heads of all his ancestors that
there w'as nothing about roasting a pig that he did
not know% Then I halted for a day to give the mules
and the men a rest, and I ordered the sucking-pig to
be killed. But when it came to the table (hovr vain
are human hopes I) there w^as no crackling, there was
no white tender meat, it w'as just a brown sloppy
stinking mess, it was uneatable. For a moment I was
dismayed. I wondered what on earth the great
explorers would do in such a pass. Would a frown
darken the stem face of Stanley and would Dr.
Livingstone preserve unruflied his Christian temper ?
I sighed. Not for this was the little black sucking-pig

124

reft untimely from his mother’s breast. It had been
better to leave him to lead a happy life in his Shan
village. I sent for the cook. Presently he came
supported on one side by Bang Lai and on the other
by Kyuzaw, my interpreter. When they let go of him
he swayed slowly from side to side like a schooner at
anchor in a swell.

“ He’s drunk,” I said.

** He’s as drunk as a lord,” answered Kyuzaw, who
had been to the rajah's school at Taunggyi and knew
many a racy English idiom.

(Once upon a time somebody called upon one of the
most eminent of the Victorians early one morning and
was told by the butler :

His lordship isn’t up yet, sir.”

** Oh, at what time does he have breakfast ? ”

Then the butler imperturbable : He doesn’t have
breakfast, sir. His lordship is generally sick about
eleven.”)

The Telegu looked at me and I looked at the Telegu.
There was no understanding in his lustrous eyes.

” Take him away,” I said. Give him his wages in
the morning and tell him to get out.”

” Very good, sir,” said Kyuzaw. “ I think that’s
best.”

They removed him and there was a great clatter and
a thud outside on the steps, but whether the Telegu
had fallen down them or whether Kyuzaw and Rang Lai
had thrown him I did not think it necessary to ask.

Next morning while I was having breakfast on my
verandah Kyuzaw came in to ask for the day’s instruc-
tions and to gossip. The bungalow was on the edge of

125

a considerable And there wi* more life and

movement than you see generally in the Shan villages.
The day before when I arrived, perhaps a little before
I was expected, the women w'ore nothing but their
lungyis, dra\^*n up just to cover their breasts, and the
upper part of their bodies were naked, but to-day, I
fear in deference to the importance they were good
enough to ascribe to me, they wore little bodices and
were less pleasing of aspect. Suddenly the cook
appeared in front of the bungalow’. He had a bundle
on his shoulder and thi*? he put down on the ground
beside him. He gave me a deep and solemn bow,
then quickly took up his bundle, turned round and
walked off.

“ I gave him his wages and money for his keep/’
said Kyuzaw.

“Is he going ? ” I asked.

“ Yes, sir You said he was to go the first thing
this morning. He cooked your breakfast and now he
is going.”

I did not say anything. My word was law, and I
suppose it bound me more sternly than anyone else.
It w^as twelve days to Keng Tung, and the Telegu w’ould
toot it day after day seldom seeing a human face,
and then it was twenty-three days more to Taunggyi.
He took the path that led into the jungle and my eyes
follow’ed him. I had often noticed his long swinging
stride. But now, emaciated, in his dingy Eastern clothes,
his turban slovenly tied, he looked incredibly forlorn
and under the w’eight of his bundle seemed to walk
with lassitude. I did not really care if he was dirty and
drunken, and I had dined just as happily off tinned

tongue as off a sucking-pig. He seemed now very
small and frail as he trudged on and soon he would be
lost to sight in the immensity of Asia. There was
something immeasurably pathetic, nay, tragic even, in
the sight of that old man stepping out thus into the
unknown. In his lagging gait I seemed to read the
despair of one who had been beaten by life. I suppose
that Kyuzaw saw my uneasiness, for with his frank and
tolerant smile he said :

“You were very patient with him, sir. I would have
sent him away long ago.”

“ Was he upset when you told him ? ”

“ Oh, no, sir. He knew he deserved it. He is not
a bad man, a thief, drunken and very dirty, but that is
all. He will find another place when he gets back to
Taunggyi#”

4

XXIV

The uneventful days followed one another like
the rhjTued couplets of a didactic poem. The
country was sparsely inhabited. On the road
we met no one but a few Kaws, and now and then
we saw their villages perched on the side of a hill.
The stages were long and when we arri\ed at the
end of the day’s journey we were exhausted. There
was no road, but only a narrow pathway’, and where
it ran under the trees it was thick with mud, and the
ponies stumbled through it splashing ; sometimes it
came up to their knees and it was impossible to go
at more than a snail’s pace. It was hard work and
dreary. We vrent up and down low hills, winding in
and out by the side of the river, and this, w’hicli
at first was but a narrow stream that one could ford
easily, grew day by day into a broad and rushing tor
rent. The last time w^e forded it, it was deep enough
to come up to the bellies of the ponies. Then it became
a great flow of water, tumultuous in places w'here it
dashed over rocks, and then flowing calm and swift.
We crossed it on a bamboo raft attached to each
bank by a bamboo rope and pulled ourselves over.
Most of the tropical rivers that the traveller sees are
very wide, »but this one, overhung with an immense
luxuriance of vegetation, was as narrow as the Wey.
But you could never have mistaken it for an English

127

river, it had none of the sunny cahn of our English
streams, nor their smiling nonchalance ; it was dark and
tragic and its flow had the sinister intensity of the
unbridled lusts of man.

We camped beside it, among lofty trees, and at night
the noise of the crickets and the frogs and the cries of the
birds were loud and insistent. There is a notion abroad
that the jungle at night is silent and writers have often
been eloquent on the subject; but the silence they
have described is spiritual ; it is a translation of the
emotion of solitude and of distance from the world of
men and of the sense of awe that comes from the
darkness and the solemn trees and the pressing growth
of the greenwood ; in sober fact the din is tremendous, so
that till you become accustomed to it you may find it
hard to sleep. But when you lie awake listening to it
there is a strange uneasiness in your heart that does feel
oddly like a terrible, an unearthly stillness.

But at last we reached the end of the jungle and the
track, though uneven and bad, was wide enough for a
bullock-cart. From my rest-house there was a broad
view of the paddy fields and the hills in the distance were
blue. Though they were the same hills that I had been
crossing for I do not know how many days they had now
a strangely romantic air. In their depths was magic.
It was surprising to find what a difierence it made to
one’s spirits to be once more in the open country. It
was not till then that one realised how much the long
days of travelling through the jungle had depressed
them. One felt on a sudden content and well-disposed
towards one’s fellows.

Then we came to a large and prosperous village, called

Hawng Luk, with a spacious and well-built rest-house,
and this wa:» the last place we ^tayed at before reaching
Siam. The hills in front of us were Siame^'C hills. I
think w'e all had a feeling of elation as w'e approached the
frontier. We passed through a trim little village (as we
neared Siam the villages, touched by the greater
chilisation of the country we were entering, seemed
more prosperous) over a quaint covered bridge and llien
came to a small, sluggish stream. This was the bound-
ary. We forded it and were in Siam.

WE came to a wood of young teak-trees and rode
through this till we reached the village at
which I had arranged to pass the night. Here
there was a police post, neat and trim, with flowers in the
garden ; the sergeant in charge, notwithstanding his
khaki uniform and the tidy little soldiers under him
somewhat flustered at the sight of a white man and
such an imposing retinue, telling us that there was no
rest-house, directed us to the monastery. It was about
a quarter of a mile from the main road and I rode up
to it through the rice fields. It was a very poor little
monastery, consisting only of a sort of barn of sun-baked
bricks, in which were the images, and a wooden bunga-
low, in which lived the monies and their pupils . Here my
bed was set up and my camp equipment, in the temple
itself, with the images looking down on me. It caused
no scandal to the monks or the novices. They scanned
my possessions with eager interest, they watched me eat
as the crowd watches the wild beasts eat at the Zoo, and
in the evening they stood round me with wondering
eyes when I played patience. After a little while they
caught the sense of my complicated motions and a little
gasp was wrung from them (like that flattering,
anguished sob that breaks from a silent audience as a
trapezist a hundred feet from the ground does the salto
mortal^ when with a bold gesture I transferred a dozen

130

fitting cards to a line when there was a place for them.
But such is the infirmity of human nature that no sooner
had one of them got an inkling of what I w as doing and
in an agitated w’hisper explained to the others, than all
with excited cries and gestures of delight pressed round
about me ; they snatched at my arm to point out to me a
card that I should move (and how w*as I who knew no
Siamese to explain that you could never, never put a six
of hearts on a seven of diamonds ; I had to restrain
them by force from mo\'ing a card, which I meant to
move myself when I had sufficiently considered the
matter, and wffien I did so my action w^as greeted with
applause. No man, be he a monk in a Buddhist monas-
tery or Prime Minister of England, can forbear to give
advice w’hen he watches somebody else doing a patience.

At eight the novices said their prayers, in a sing-song
monotonous tone, some of them smoking cheroots the
while, and then I was left alone for the night. There
was no door to the temple and the blue night entered
and the images on their tables shone dimly. The floor
was clean, swept by women to acquire merit, but there
were thousands of ants, attracted I suppose by the rice
brought in offering by the devout, and they made sleep
difficult. After a while I gave it up as a bad job and got
up. I went to the doorway and looked out at the night
The air was balmy. I saw someone moving about and
presently discovered that it was Kyuzaw’. He also
could not sleep. I offered him a cheroot and we sat
down on the steps of the temple. He was a trifle
contemptuous of this Siamese Buddhism. The monks
did not go out with their begging bowls, it appeared, as
the Blessed One had directed, but let the faithful bring

1S2

them their rice and food to the monastery. Kyuzaw,
like most Shans, had at one time been a novice and he
told me, not without complacency, that he had never
failed to go out with the begging bowl. He gave a
libtle chuckle.

** I always went to my own house first and got a well-
cooked meal put in the bottom of my bowl. I covered
it with a leaf and went on my round till the bowl was
filled. Then I went back to the monastery, threw away
to the dogs all that was above the leaf and ate my own
good dinner.”

I asked him if he liked the life. He shrugged his
shoulders.

** There was nothing to do/* he said. Two hours
work in the morning and there were prayers at night,
but all the rest of the day nothing. I was glad when
the time came for me to go home again.”

I inveigled him to speak of transmigration.

” There was a man in a village near my home who
remembered his old life. He had been dead eighteen
years and he came to the village and he recognised his
wife and he told her where they used to keep their
money and he reminded her of things that she had long
forgotten. He went into the house and said that one of
the pots had been mended in such a way and they looked
at it and it had been mended in the way he said. The
woman cried and all the neighbours were amazed and
people came to see him from all over the country.
They wrote about it in the paper. They asked him
questions and to every question he had an answer.
He knew everything that had happened in the village
during his previous existence and the people remem-

ins

bered that what he said was true. But it did uot end

wen.”

“ Why, wiiat happened ? ” I asked*

“ WeU, his sons were grown up and they had divided
the land and the buffaloes. They did not want to give
everything back again. They said he had had his time
and now it was their turn. He said he would go to law
and the mother said she w’ould testify that w’hat he said
was true. You see. sir, she liked to have a line young
husband again, but the sons did not want to ha\e a line
young father, so they took him aside and said that if he
did not go away they would beat him till he died, so he
took the money that was in the house and everything
he could lay hands on and went away.**

“ Did he take his wife, too ? ”

“ No, he did not take her. He did not tell her he wm
going. He just went away. She was very sorry.
And of course she had nothing any more.**

We talked till we had finished our cheroots and then
Kyuzaw got me some paraflSn and we put it on the legs
of my bed to keep the ants away and I went back to bed
and slept. But the door of the temple looked due
East and the dawn woke me and I saw a huge expanse
of rose and purple. Then a little novice came in with a
platter on which were four or five cakes of rice. He
went down on his heels, a tiny little figure in yellow,
with large black eyes, and uttered a brief invocation and
then left the platter before the images. He had
hardly gone before a pariah dog, evidently on the
watch, slipped in quickly, seized one of the cakes in his
mouth and ran out again. The early sun caught the
gold on the Buddha and gave it a richness not its own.

XXVI

I TRAVELLED leisurely down Siam. The country
was pleasant, open and smiling, scattered with neat
little villages, each surrounded with a fence, and
fruit trees and areca palms growing in the compounds
gave them an attractive air of modest prosperity.
There was a good deal of traffic on the road, but it was
carried on not, as in the little inhabited Shan States by
mules, but by bullock-carts. Where the country was
flat rice was cultivated, but where it undulated teak
forests grew. The teak is a handsome tree, with a large
smooth leaf ; it does not make a very dense jungle and
the sun shines through. To ride in a teak forest, so
light, graceful and airy, is to feel yourself a cavalier in an
old romance. The rest-houses were clean and trim.
During this part of my journey I came across but one
white man and this was a Frenchman on hi« way north
who came into the bungalow in which I had settled
myself for the night. It belonged to a French teak
company, of which he was a servant, and he seemed to
look upon it as very natural that I, a stranger, should
have made myself at home in it. He was cordial ;
there are few French in this business and the men, out
in the jungle constantly to superintend the native
labourer, live lives even more lonely than the English
forest men, so that he was glad to have someone to talk
to. We shared our dinner. He was a man of robust

134

1S5

build, with a large fleshy red face and a warm voice that
seemed to wrap his fluent words in a soft rich fabric of
sound. He had just come from short leave in Bangkok
and with the Frenchman's ingenuous belief that you
are any more impressed by the number of his amours
than by the number of his hats, talked much of the
sexual experiences he had had there. He was a coarse
fellow, ill-bred and stupid. But he caught sight of a
tom, paper-bound book that was lying on the table.

“ Tiensj where did you get hold of this ? "

I told liim that I had found it in the bungalow and had
been glancing through it. It was that selection of
Verlaine’s poems which has for a frontispiece Carrifere’s
misty, but not uninteresting portrait of him.

I wonder who the devil can have left it here,” he
said.

He took up the volume and idly fingering the pages
told me various gross stories about the unhappy poet.
They were not new to me. Then his eyes caught a line
that he knew and he began to read.

” Fold des fruits^ des Jleurs, des feuilles ei des branches*
Et puis void mon coeur qui ne bat que pour vous.**

And as he read his voice broke and tears came into his
eyes and ran down his face.

Akf Tnerde” he cried, ” ga me fait pkurer comme un
veauJ*

He flung the book down and laughed and gave a Kttle
sob. I poured him out a drink of whisky, for there is
nothing better than alcohol to still or at least to enable
one to endure that particular heartache from which at
the moment he was suffering. Then we played piquet.
He went to bed early, since he had a long day before

e:

ISO

him and was starting at dawn, and by the time I got
up he was gone. I did not see him again.

But as I rode along in the sunshine, bustling and
quick like women gossiping at their spinning-wheels, I
thought of him. I reflected that men are more interest-
ing than books, but have this defect that you cannot
skip them ; you have at least to skim the whole volume
in order to find the good page. And you cannot put
them on a shelf and take them down when you feel in-
clined ; you must read them when the chance offers, like
a book in a circulating library that is in such demand
that you must take your turn and keep it no more than
four and twenty hours. You may not be in the mood
for them then or it may be that in your hurry you miss
the only thing they had to give you.

And now the plain spread out with a noble spacious-
ness. The rice fields were no longer little patches
laboriously wrested from the jungle, but broad acres.
The days followed one another with a monotony in
which there was withal something impressive. In the
life of cities we are conscious but of fragments of days ;
they have no meaning of their own, but are merely
parts of time in which we conduct such and such affairs ;
we begin them when they are already well on their way
and continue them without regard to their natural end.
But here they had completeness and one watched them
unroll themselves with stately majesty from dawn to
dusk ; each day was like a flower, a rose that buds and
blooms and, without regret but accepting the course of
nature, dies. And this vast sun-drenched plain was a
fit scene for the pageant of that ever-recurring drama.
The stars were like the curious who wander upon the

137

scene of some great event, a battle or an earthquake,
that has just occurred, first one by one timidly and then
in bands, and stand about gaping or look for traces of
what has passed.

The road became straight and level. Though here
and there deep \dth ruts and when a stream crossed it
muddy, great stretches could have been traversed by
car. Now it is all very well to ride a pony at the rate of
twelve or fifteen miles a day when you go along moun-
tain paths, but when the road is broad and fiat this mode
of travel sorely tries your patience. It was six weeks
now that I had been on the "way. It seemed endless.
Then on a sudden I found myself in the tropics. I
suppose that little by little, jts one uneventful day
followed another, the character of the scene had been
changing, but it had been so gradual that I had scarcely
noticed it, and I drew a deep breath of delight w^hen,
riding into a village one noon, I was met, as b)’ an
unexpected friend, with the savour of the harsh, the
impetuous, the flamboyant South. The depth of
colour, the hot touch of the air on one's cheek, the
dazzling, yet strangely veiled light, the different walk of
the people, the lazy breadth of their gestures, the
silence, the solemnity, the dust — ^this was the real thing
and my jaded spirits rose. The village street was
bordered by tamarinds and they were like the sentences
of Sir Thomas Browne, opulent, stately and self-
possessed. In the compounds grew plantains, regal and
bedraggled, and the crotons flaunted the riches of their
sepulchral hues. Ihe cocoanut trees with their dis-
hevelled heads were like long lean old men suddenly
risen from sleep. In the monastery was a grove of areca

1S8

palms and they stood, immensely tall and slender,
with the gaunt precision and the bare, precise, and
intellectual nakedness of a collection of apothegms. It
was the South,

We had now to get the day's journey over as early as
possible and we started just as the first grey light stole
into the Eastern sky. The sun rose and it was pleasantly
warm on one’s back, but in a little while it grew fierce
and by ten it was overwhelming. It seemed to me that
I had been riding along that broad white road since the
beginning of time and still it stretched interminably
before me. Then we arrived at a handsome village
where the township officer, a neat Siamese, smiling and
polite, offered to put me up in his own spacious house ;
and when he took me into his compound I saw waiting
for me, shaded by palm trees and diapered by the sun,
red, substantial, reliable but unassuming — a Ford car.
My journey was over. It ended without any flourish of
trumpets, quietly, like the anti-climax of a play ; and
next morning, in the chilly dawn, leaving my mules and
ponies with Kyuzaw, I started. The metal road was
building and where it was impassable the Ford car took
the bullock track ; here and there we splashed through
shallow streams. I was bumped and shaken and tossed
from side to side ; still it was a road, a motor road, and
sped along vertiginously at the rate of eight miles an
hour. It was the first car in the history of man that had
ever passed that way and the peasants in their fields
looked at us in amaze. I wondered whether it occurred
to any of them that in it they saw the symbol of a new
life. It marked the end of an existence they had led
since time immemorial. It heralded a revolution in

their habits and their ou^t rtii**. It rhnniye that
came do'i^n upon them panting and p’lffirg, tiith a
slightly flattened t>Te but blmsing a defiant hnrn,
Change.

And a little before ‘sunset we arrived at the railhead.
There wa<5 a new, gaily-painted rest-house at the
station, and it might almost ha\e been called a hotel.
There was a bath-room, with a bath you could lie do\%n
in, and on the verandah long chairs in which you could
loll. It was ci\ ilisation .

XXVII

I WAS within forty-eight hours by rail of Bangkok,
but before going there I wanted to see Lopburi and
Ayudha, which at one time were capitals of Siam.
In these Eastern countries cities are founded, increase to
greatness and are destroyed in a manner that cannot but
fill the Western traveller, accustomed for many cen-
turies now to a relative stability, with a certain mis-
giving. A king, forced by the hazards of war or maybe
only to gratify a whim, will change his capital and,
founding a new city, build a palace and temples and
richly ornament them ; and in a few generations the
seat of government, owing to another hazard or another
whim, moving elsewhere, the city is abandoned and
desolation usurps the place of so much transitory
splendour. Here and there in the jungle, far from any
habitation, you will find ruined temples, overgrown
with trees, and among the dank verdure broken gods
and elaborate bas-reliefs as the only sign that here
was once a thriving city, and you will come across
poverty-stricken villages that are all that remain
of the capital of a rich and powerful kingdom. It is a
sombre reminder of the mutability of human things.

Lopburi is now but a narrow winding street of Chinese
houses, built along one bank of the river ; but all about
are the ruins of a great city, mouldering temples and
crumbling pagodas with here and there a fragment of

140

141

florid carving, and in the temples are broken images
of the Blessed One, and in their courtyards bits of
heads and arms and legs. The plaster is grey as
though it had been discoloured by London fogs and it
peels off the bricks so that you tliink of old men ”with
loathsome diseases. There is no elegance of line in
these ruins and the decoration of doors and windows,
robbed by time of their gold and tinsel, is mean and
tawdry.

But I had come to Lopburi chiefly to see what re-
mained of the grand house of Constantine Faulkon, who
was, I suppose, one of the most amazing of the adven-
turers who have made the East the scene of their
exploits. The son of a Cephalonian innkeeper, he ran
away to sea in an English ship, and after many hazards
arriving in Siam rose to be the chief minister of the
King. The world of his day rang with the tale of his
unlimited power, splendour and enormous w^ealth.
There is an account of him in a little book by the Pere
d’Orleans of the Company of Jesus, but it is a work of
edification and dilates unduly upon the tribulations of
Constantine’s widow when after his death she sought to
preserve her virtue from the rude onslaughts of a
Siamese prince. In her laudable efforts she was sup-
ported by her saintly grandmother, who at the age of
eighty-eight, having lost nothing of the ardour and
vivacity of her faith, talked to her continually of the
famous Martyrs of Japan, from whom she had the
honour to be descended. My daughter^ she said to her,
nhai glory there is in hmtg a martyr I You kaae here ike
advantage that martyrdom seems to he an heirloom in your
family : if you have so muck reason to expect ii^ what pains

142

should you not take to deserve it !

It is satisfactory to learn that, sustained by these
counsels and fortified by the incessant admonitions of the
Jesuit fathers, the widow resisted all temptations to
become the bejewelled inmate of an almost royal
seraglio and ended her virtuous days as dish-washer in
the house of a gentleman of no social consequence.

One could have wished that the P^re d’Orl6ans had
been a little more circumstantial in his account of his
hero’s career. The vicissitudes in the course of which he
ascended from his lowly station to such a pinnacle surely
deserved to be saved from oblivion. He represents him
as a pious catholic and an upright minister devoted to the
interests of his king ; but his account of the revolution
that overthrew both king and dynasty and delivered
the Greek into the hands of the outraged patriots of
Siam, reads as though a certain arrangement of the facts
had seemed necessary so that neither le grand roi nor
various persons in high place should incur reproach. A
decent veil is thrown over the sufiFerings of the fallen
favourite, but his death at the hands of the executioner
is vastly edifying. Reading between the jejune lines
you receive notwithstanding the impression of a power-
ful and brilliant character Constantine Faulkon was
unscrupulous, cruel, greedy, faithless, ambitious ; but
he was great. His story reads like one of Plutarch’s
lives.

But of the grand house which he built nothing
remains but the high brick wall that surrounded it and
three or four roofless buildings, crumbling walls and the
shapes of doors and windows. They have still the vague
dignity of the architecture of Louis XIV It is an

14S

unhandsome ruin that reminds you of nothing but a
group of jerry-built villas destroyed by fire.

I went back to the river. It was narrow and turbid,
deep between high banks, and on the other side were
thick clumps of bamboo behind which the red sun was
setting. The people were having their evening bath ;
fathers and mothers were bathing their children, and
monks, having washed themselves, were rinsing out
their yellow robes. It w’as a pleasant sight and grateful
to the sensibility jarred by thj»‘.e sordid ruins and
perplexed.

I have not the imagination to clothe dead bones with
life nor the capacity to feel emotion over and over
again about the same thing. I have known people who
read The Egoisi once a year and others who never go
to Paris without having a look at Manet’s Ofympe.
\\lien once I have received from a work of art its
peculiar thrill I have done with it till after the lapse of
years, having become a different person, I can in The
Egoisi read a book I have never read before and in
Manet’s Olympe see a picture that has only just been
hung in the Louvre. I had a notion that Ayudha
would offer me nothing more than Lopburi and so made
up my mind to give it a miss. Besides, I like my ease,
I had gone from rest-house to rest-house long enough to
hanker for the modest comfort of an Eastern hotel. I
was getting a trifle tired of timed sausages and canned
pears. I had neither had a letter nor seen a paper since
I left Taunggyi and I thought with pleasure of the huge
packet that must be awaiting me in Bangkok.

I determined to go there without lingering on the
way. The train passed leisurely through wide and open

country with jagged blue hills in the distance. There
were rice fields on both sides of the line, as far as the eye
could reach, but a good many trees, too, so that the
landscape had a certain friendliness. The rice was in aU
stages of growth, from the young green shoots in little
patches to the grain nearly ripe and yellowing in the
sun. Here and there they were cutting it and some-
times you saw three or four peasants in line laden with
great sheaves. I suppose that there is none of the
staple foods of man that needs so much labour first to
grow and then to prepare for consumption. In the
stream by the side of the track buffaloes in herds, under
the charge of a small boy or a bronzed, dwarfish man in a
large hat, wallowed luxuriously. Little flocks of rice-
birds flew white and shining and sometimes grey cranes
with outstretched necks. At the wayside stations
there was always a crowd of idlers, and their panaungs^
bright yellow, plum or emerald green, made lovely
splashes of colour against the dust and the sunshine.

The train arrived at Ayudha. I was content to
satisfy my curiosity about this historic place by a view of
the railway-station (after all if a man of science can
reconstruct a prehistoric animal from its thigh-bone why
cannot a writer get as many emotions as he wants from
a railway-station ? In the Pennsylvania Depot is all the
mystery of New York and in Victoria Station the grim,
weary vastness of London), and with nonchalant eyes I
put my head out of the carriage window. But a young
man sprang to the door and opened it so promptly that I
was nearly precipitated on to the platform. He wore a
small round topee, a white drill coat, a black s^panaung
so arranged as to make breeches, black silk stockings and

145

patent-leather pumps. He spoke voluble English. He
had been sent to meet me, he said, and would show me
everything there was to be seen at Ayudha ; there -was a
launch waiting at the landing-stage to take me up and
down the river ; and he had ordered a carriage ; and the
rest-house had been swept and cleaned that morning ;
and he ended up :

Everything in the garden is lovely.”

He smiled at me with large flashing white teeth. A
young man with a yellow face as smooth as a new
plate, high cheek-bones, and very black gleaming eyes.
I had not the heart then to tell him that I would not
stay at Ayudha and indeed he gave me no time, for
calling porters he told them to take my traps out
of the carriage.

He took his duties seriously. He spared me nothing
From the station we walked along a broad street shaded
with tamarind trees, on each side of which were Chinese
shops, and the light was lovely and the people made
attractive little pictures so that I would willingly have
lingered ; but my giiide told me that there was nothing
to see there, you had to go to Bangkok for shops, there
they had everything you could buy in Europe ; and with
gentle determination led me to the landing-stage. We
got into the launch. The river was broad and yellow.
All along it were houseboats in which were shops, and
above the muddy banks were houses on piles among
fruit-trees, hly guide took me to a walled enclosure on
the river bank where had been a royal palace, and in
what might have been once a throne-room, for it was but
a ruin, there was a royal bed and a royal chair and some
fragments of carved wood. He showed me innumerable

146

heads of Buddha in bronze and stone, which had been
brought from Lopburi or excavated from the numerous
wats of Ayudha. We walked along a road for a little
and there waiting for us was a tiny carriage and an
obstinate pony. What organisation ! We drove for
two or three miles, along a pleasantly shady road with
peasants’ houses on piles on each side of it and outside
each gateway was a little paper pagoda stuck over with
little white flags in order to preserve the inmates of the
house from cholera. We came to a vast park, with its
green glades and grassy clearings, a pleasant place to
picnic in, and here were the remains of a palace and
great temples, many ruined pagodas and in one of the
temples, deserted of all and lonely but indifferent, an
enormous bronze figure of a sitting Buddha. Here and
there under the trees children were playing. The little
Siamese boys, with their wide eyes, curling hair and
roguish looks, were very pretty. In passing my guide
pointed out to me a shrub with a pale violet flower. He
told me that when you found ifc you might be sure that
there were no tigers.

“ You have no tigers in England,” he laughed, not, I
thought, without condescension.

I answered with deprecating modesty.

** No, we lead safe and peaceful lives in that tight
little island. We are exposed to no dangers more
alarming than the recklessness of a drunken motorist or
the fury of a woman scorned.”

When we got back to the river I thanked the young
Siamese warmly for showing me such interesting things
and said that I would now go to the rest-house, upon
which he opened his large gleaming eyes still larger and

147

with his voice rising shrilly told me that I had not yet
seen half of what he had to show me, I looked at him
archly and murmured that enough w’as as good as a
feast. He laughed brightly at this, evidently with the
flattering belief that I had just invented the epigram-
matic phrase, but floored me with the observation that
enough w^as a purely relative tenn. I let him take me
to another ruined temple, a scene untidy with desolation,
and I gave an impatient glance at another Buddha of
enormous size. And another and another. At last w’e
came to a temple that was still a place of pilgrimage. I
drew" a breath of relief. It was like coming out of an
unfurnished house to let, with its dead emptiness, into
the busy street. At the landing-stage were women in
sampans selling gold leaf, papers and incense sticks.
On each side of the walk that led to the temple were
little tables on which were displayed the same wares and
sweets and cakes besides, and the vendors were plying a
busy trade. The chapel was not very large and it was
almost filled with a gigantic image of the Blessed One,
and as you walked up the steps and looked through the
door (your eyes still dazzled by the sunlight) it was aw'e-
inspiring to discern vaguely that enormous gilded figure
looming out of the darkness. In front of him w'ere large
figures of two disciples and the altar table was covered
with tawdry ornaments, with burning tapers and with
burning incense. In a corner was a large teak bed on
which were sitting two monks, smoking the fat Siamese
cigarettes, drinking tea and chewing betel ; they
seemed not to notice the people w'ho were there ; some,
men, women and children, in order to acquire merit were
applpng gold leaf to the pediment, a gigantic lotus, on

148

which the Buddha sat. One woman, a spare, middle-
aged person with a thin, intelligent face, with genu-
flections and prayers was consulting fortune by means of
large wooden beans, which she threw on the ground and
which, by falling on their flat or their concave sides,
answered her questions. There was an old man who
came in with half-a-dozen members of his family and as
soon as the middle-aged woman had finished with the
beans he took them and when after the prescribed rites
he threw them on the ground the whole party watched
anxiously. Having finished he lit a cigarette and the
rest rose from their knees, but whether the fates had
promised good fortune or ill you could tell from not one
of those impassive faces.

Now at last my guide took me to the rest-house that
had been swept and cleaned for my visit. It was a
houseboat with a narrow verandah looking on the river,
a long sitting-room of dark wood and a bedroom and
bathroom on each side. I very much liked the look of
it. The young Siamese asked me to go to his house
after dinner, saying he would ask his friends, but I told
him I was tired, and with many expressions of goodwill
he left me. The day was waning and, alone at last,
sitting on the verandah I watched the trafiic of the river.
There were pedlars going along in their sampans with
an easy stroke, pots and pans in their boats, vegetables
for sale or food cooking in little stoves. Peasants
passed me with a load of rice or an old woman with a
shrivelled grey head paddling herself as unconcernedly
in a tiny dug-out as though she were walking along the
street. The rest-house was at a bend of the river and
the bank to which it was moored turned sharply ; it was

tliick with mangoes and palms and arecas. The sun «et
and they were silhouetted against tiie redness of the
sky ; the areca Nvith its bedraggled crown looks like a
feather duster very much the w’orse for wear, but at
night against the sapphire of the sky it has the distinc-
tion of a Persian miniature. With the last light of day a
white flock of egrets, like haphazard thoughts that flit
through the mind without reason or sequence, fluttered
disorderly down the tranquil stream. Darkness fell and
at first the houseboats on the other side of the broad
river were bright with lights, but they went out one by
one and only here and there was a red gleam reflected
on the water. One by one the stars came out and the
sky blazed with them. The traffic of the river ceased
and only now and then did you hear the soft splash of
a paddle as someone silently passed on his way home.
When I awoke in the night I felt a faint motion as the
house-boat rocked a little and heard a little gurgle of
w’ater, like the ghost of an Eastern music travelling
not through space but through time. It was worth
while for that sensation of exquisite peace, for the
richness of that stillness, to have endured all that sight-
seeing.

XXVIII

A FEW hours later I was in Bangkok.

It is impossible to consider these populous
modern cities of the East without a certain
malaise. They are all alike, with their straight streets,
their arcades, their tramways, their dust, their blinding
sun, their teeming Chinese, their dense traffic, their
ceaseless din. They have no history and no traditions.
Painters have not painted them. No poets, transfigur-
ing dead bricks and mortar with their divine nostalgia,
have given them a tremulous melancholy not their own
They live their own lives, without associations, like a man
without imagination. They are hard and glittering and
as unreal as a backcloth in a musical comedy. They
give you nothing. But when you leave them it is with a
feeling that you have missed something and you cannot
help thinking that they have some secret that they have
kept from you. And though you have been a trifle
bored you look back upon them wistfully ; you are
certain that they have after all something to give you
which, had you stayed longer or under other conditions,
you would have been capable of receiving. For it is
useless to offer a gift to him who cannot stretch out a
hand to take it. But if you go back the secret still
evades you and you ask yourself whether after all their
only secret is not that the glamour of the East enwraps
them. Because they are called Rangoon, Bangkok or

150

155

Saigon, because they are situated on the Irrawaddy, the
Menam or the Mehkong, those great turbid risers, they
are invested with the magic spell that the ancient and
storied East has cast upon the imaginative West. A
hundred travellers may seek in them the answer to a
question they cannot put and that yet tomicnts them,
only to be disappointed, a hundred travellers more will
continue to press. And who can -o describe a city as to
gi%*e a significant picture of it ? It is a different place to
everyone w’ho lives in it. No one can tell what it really
is. Nor does it matter. The only thing of importance
— ^to me — ^is what it means to me ; and when the money-
lender said, you can 'ave Rome, he said all there w’as to
be said, by him, about the Eternal City. Bangkok, I
put my impressions on the table, as a gardener puts the
varied flowers he has cut in a great heap, leaving them
for you to arrange, and I ask myself what sort of pattern
I can make out of them. For my impressions are like a
long frieze, a vague tapestry, and my business is to find
in it an elegant and at the same time moving decoration.
But the materials that are given me are dust and heat
and noise and whiteness and more dust. The New’
Road is the main artery of the city, five miles long, and it
is lined with houses, low and sordid, and shops, and the
goods they sell, European and Japanese for the most
part, look shop-soiled and dingy. A leisurely tram
crowded with passengers passes down the w'hole length
of the street, and the conductor never ceases to blow his
horn. Gharries and rickshaws go up and down ringing
their bells and motors sounding their claxons. The
pavements are crowded and there is a ceaseless clatter
of the clogs the people wear. Cloppert j-clop they go

I.

152

and it makes a sound as insistent and monotonous as the
sawing of the cicadas in the jungle. There are Siamese.
The Siamese, with short bristly hair, wearing the
panaung, a wide piece of stuflP which they tuck in to make
baggy and comfortable breeches, are not a comely race,
but old age gives them distinction ; they grow thin,
emaciated even, rather than fat, and grey rather than
bald, and then their dark eyes peer brightly out of a
ravaged, yellow and wrinkled face ; they walk well and
uprightly, not from the knees as do most Europeans, but
from the hips. There are Chinese, in trousers white,
blue or black, that come to just above the ankle, and
they are innumerable . There are Arabs, tall and heavily
bearded, with white hats and a hawklike look ; they
walk with assurance, leisurely, and in their bold eyes
you discern contempt for the race they exploit and
pride in their own astuteness. There are turbaned
natives of India with dark skins and the clean, sensitive
features of their Aryan blood ; as in all the East outside
India they seem deliberately alien and thread their way
through the host as though they walked a lonely jungle
path ; their faces are the most inscrutable of all those
inscrutable faces. The sun beats down and the road is
white and the houses are white and the sky is white ;
there is no colour but the colour of dust and heat.

But if you turn out of the main road you will find
yourself in a network of small streets, dark, shaded and
squalid, and tortuous alleys paved with cobble stones.
In numberless shops, open to the street, with their gay
signs, the industrious Chinese ply the various crafts of an
Oriental city. Here are druggists and coffin shops,
money-changers and tea-houses. Along the streets,

uttering the raucous cry of China, coolies lollop swiftly
bearing loads and the peddling cook carries his little
kitchen to sell you the hot dir4ner you are too busy to eat
at home. You might be in Canton. Here the Chinese
live their lives apart and indifferent to the Western
capital that the rulers of Siam have sought to make out
of this strange, flat, confused city. Wiiat tlicy have
aimed at you see in the broad a\enuf'«, straight dusty
roads, sometimes running by the side of a canal, with
which they have surrounded this conglomeration of
sordid streets. They are handsome, spacious and
stately, shaded by trees, the deliberate adornment of a
great city demised by a king ambitious to have an
imposing seat ; but they have no reality. There is
something stagy about them, so that you feel they are
more apt for court pageants than for the use of every
day. No one walks in them. Tliey seem to await
ceremonies and processions. They are like the deserted
avenues in the park of a fallen monarch.

4

XXIX

IT appears that there are three hundred and ninety
wats in Bangkok. A wat is a collection of buildings
used as a Buddhist monastery and it is surrounded
by a wall, often crenellated so as to make a charming
pattern, like the walled enclosure of a city. Each
building has its own use. The main one is called a hote ;
it is a great and lofty hall, with a central nave generally
and two aisles, and here the Buddha stands on his
gilded platform. There is another building, very like
the bote, called the vikara and distinguished from it by
the fact that it is not surrounded by the sacred stones,
which is used for feasts and ceremonies and assemblies of
the common folk The bote, and sometimes the vikara, is
surrounded by a cloister. Then there are shelters,
libraries, bell towers and the priests’ dwellings. Bound
the main buildings in due order are pagodas, large and
small (they have their names, Phra Prang and Phra
Chedi) ; some contain the ashes of royal or pious persons,
(it may be even of royal and pious persons) and some,
merely decorative, serve only to acquire merit for those
that built them.

But not by this list of facts (which I found in a book on
the Architecture of Siam) can I hope to give an im-
pression of the surprise, the stupefaction almost, which
assailed me when I saw these incredible buildings.
They are unlike anything in the world, so that you are

154

155

taken aback, and you cannot fit them into the scheme of
the things you know. It makes you laugh with delight
to think that an^’thing so fantastic could exist on this
sombre earth. They are gorgeous ; they glitter with
gold and whitewash, yet are not garish ; against that
vivid sky, in that dazzling sunlight, they hold their
own, defying the brilliancy of nature and supplementing
it with the ingenuity and the playful boldnt of man
The artists who developed them step by step from tht*
buildings of the ancient Khmers had the courage to
pursue their fantasy to the limit ; I fancy that art meant
little to them, they desired to express a mbol ; they
knew no reticence, they cared nothing for good taste ;
and if they achieved art it is as men acliie\e hap})Ine«<,
not by pursuing it, but by doing with all their heart
whatever in the day's work needs doing. I do not know
that in fact they achieved art ; I do not know that these
Siamese wats have beauty, which they say is reserved
and aloof and very refined ; all I know' is that they are
strange and gay and odd, their lines are infinitely
distinguished, like the lines of a proposition in a school-
boy's Euclid, their colours are flaunting and crude, like
the colours of vegetables in the greengrocer's stall at an
open-air market, and, like a place where seven ways
meet, they open roads down which the imagination can
make many a careless and unexpected journey.

The royal wat is not a wat but a city of wats ; it is a
gay, coloured confusion of halls and pagodas, some of
them in ruins, some with the appearance of being
brand-new ; there are buildings, brilliant of hue
though somewhat run to seed, that look like monstrous
vegetables in the kitchen-gardens of the djinn ; there

156

are structures made of tiles and encrusted with strange
tile flowers, three of them enormous, but many small
ones, rows of them, that look like the prizes in a shooting-
gallery at a village fair in the country of the gods. It
is like a page of Euphues and you are tickled to death
at the sesquipedalian fancy that invented so many
sonorous, absurd, grandiloquent terms. It is a laby-
rinth in which you cannot find your way. Roof rises
upon roof and the roofs in Siamese architecture are
its chief glory. They are arranged in three tiers,
the upper one steeply pitched, and the lower ones
decreasing in angle as they descend. They are covered
with glazed tiles and their red and yellow and green are
a feast to the eye. The gables are framed with Narga,
the sacred snake, its head at the lower eaves and its
undulating body climbing up the slope of the roof to end
in a horn at the apex ; and the gables are decorated
with reliefs in carved wood of Indra on the Elephant or
Vishnu on the Garuda ; for the temples of Buddha
extend without misgiving shelter to the gods of other
faiths. It is all incredibly rich with the gilding and the
glass mosaic of the architraves and door-jambs and the
black and gold lacquer of the doors and shutters.

It is huge, it is crowded, it dazzles the eyes and takes
the breath away, it is empty, it is dead ; you wander
about a trifle disconsolate, for after all it means nothing
to you, the ** oh of surprise is extorted from you, but
never the ah ” of emotion wrung ; it makes no sense ;
it is an intricacy of odd, archaic and polysyllabic words
in a crossword puzzle. And when in the course of your
rambles you step up to look over a tall balustrade and
see a rockery it is with relief that you enter. It is made

157

about a small piece of artificial vatcr, with little rustic
bridges built over it here and there ; it looks like the
stony desert in \^hich an ancient sage in a Chinese
picture has his hermitage, and on the artificial r >cks by
the water *s edge are monkeys and wild cats In stone and
little dwarfish men. A magnolia grows there and a
Chinese 'willow and shrubs \nth fat, shining h‘a\es. It
is a pleasantly fantastic retreat where aa oriental king
might fitly meditate, in comfort and peace f)n the
transitoriness of compound things.

But there is another wat, Suthat b}* name, that
gives you no such impression of pell-mell confusion. It
is clean and well swept and empty and quiet, and the
space and the silence make a significant decoration. In
the cloisters, all round, sitting cheek by jowd are gilded
Buddhas, and as night falls and they are left to un-
distracted meditation, they are mysterious and vaguely
sinister. Here and there in the court shrubs grow and
stumpy gnarled trees. There is a multitude of rooks
and they caw loudly as they fly. The hoie stands high
on a double platform, and its whitewash is stained by the
rain and burned by the sun to a mottled ivory. The
square columns, fluted at the comers, slope slighth^
inwards, and their capitals are strange upspringing
flow-ers like flowers in an enchanted garden. They give
the effect of a fantastic filigree of gold and silver and
precious gems, emeralds, rubies and zircons. And the
carving on the gable, intricate and elaborate, droops
down like maidenhair in a grotto, and the climbing snake
is like the waves of the sea in a Chinese painting. The
doorways, three at each end and very tall, are of wood
heavily carved and dully gilt, and the windows, clote

together and high, have shutters of faded gilt that
faintly shines With the evening, when the blue sky
turns pink, the roof, the tall steep roof with its pro-
jecting eaves, gains all kinds of opalescent hues so that
you can no longer believe it was made by human
craftsmen, for it seems made of passing fancies and
memories and fond hopes. The silence and the solitude
seem about to take shape and appear before your eyes.
And now the wat is very tall and very slender and of an
incredible elegance. But, alas, its spiritual significance
escapes you

XXX

IT seemed to me that there was more of tlu^ in the
humble little monasteries that I had pa'«*i>ed un the
road hither. With their wooden walls and thatched
roofs and their small taw’dry images there ^\a- a
homeliness about them, but withal an austerity, that
seemed to suit the homely and yet austere religion that
Gautama preached. It is, to my fancy, a religion of the
countryside rather than of the cities and there lingers
about it always the green shade of the wild fig-tree under
which the Blessed One found enlightenment. Legend
has made him out to be the son of a king, so that w’hen he
renounced the world he might seem to have abandoned
power and great riches and glory ; but in truth he was
no more than the scion of a good family of country
gentlemen, and when he renounced the world I do not
suppose he abandoned more than a number of buffaloes
and some rice fields. His life was as simple as that of
the headman of any of the villages I had passed through
in the Shan States. He lived in a world that bad a
passion for metaphysical disquisition, but he did not
take kindly to metaphysics and when he was forced by
the subtle Hindu sages into argument he grew somewhat
impatient. He would have nothing to do with specula-
tions upon the origin, significance and purpose of the
Universe. “ Verily,” he said, within this mortal body,
some six feet high, but conscious and endowed with

159

im

mind, is the world and its origin, and its passing away/*
His followers were forced by the Brahman doctors to
defend their positions with metaphysical arguments and
in course of time elaborated a theory of their faith that
would satisfy the keen intelligence of a philo-
sophic people, but Gautama, like all the founders of
religion, had in point of fact but one thing to say :
come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and
I will give you rest-

Most of the gods that the world has seen have made a
somewhat frantic claim that men should have faith in
them, and have threatened with dreadful penalties
such as could not (whatever their goodwill) believe.
There is something pathetic in the violence with which
they denounce those who thwart them in the bestowal
of the great gifts they have to offer. They seem deep
in their hearts to have felt that it was the faith of others
that gave them divinity (as though their godhead
standing on an insecure foundation every believer was
as it were a stone to buttress it) and that the message
they so ardently craved to deliver could only have its
efficacy if they became god. And god they could only
become if men believed in them. But Gautama made
only the claim of the physician that you should give him
a trial and judge him by results. He was more like the
artist who does his work as best he can because to
produce art is his function, and having offered his gift to
all that are willing and able to take it, passes on to other
work, shrugging his shoulders tolerantly if his gift is
declined.

Buddhism is a way of life rather than a religion. It is
terribly austere. It is like an imknown sea when the

m

day breaks as though it had never broken before and the
colours of the morning steal over the earth as though for
the first time and you, your bearings bst, with none to
point the way, look with dismay upon the w&tvrh
desert wastes. All is passing, said the Blessed One,
all is sorrow, all is unreal; and he never ceased to
insist on the transitoriness that embittered life.

But is it true that because things pass they are evil ?
For innumerable centuries moralists, dirines and poets
have repined because of the transitoriness of created
things. But is it not the better part of wisdom to see
that change in itself is good ? Tliere is a story that
Monet, the founder of the impressionists, being troubled
with his eyes w^ent to an oculist and trying on some
spectacles cried. Good heavens, with these I see the
world just like Bouguereau. It is an instructive little
anecdote. It is out of their limitations that men create
beauty, and the new and lovely things that have been
given to the world have been very often but the result of
the conflict of the artist with his shortcomings. I
hazard the suggestion that Kichard Wagner would never
have written the Bing if he had been able to compose as
neat a tune as Verdi and that Cezanne would never have
painted his exquisite pictures if he had been able to
draw as well as the academic Ingres- And so with life.
Everything changes, nothing remains in one stay, the
rose that poured out its perfume on the air this morning
is scattered this eve ; and it is but good sense not to
bewail this, the necessity of life, nor even to accept it
with resignation, but to welcome it ; it is the chief of the
colours we have to work with, nay, it is the canvas on
which we paint, and shall we ignore it, shall we deplore

162

it, shall we complain that it makes it impossible to
complete our picture ? Does the rose smell less sweet
because in an hour it dies, is love less precious because it
passes, is a song less lovely because we tire of it ? If all
things are transitory let us find delight in their
transitoriness.

And that on the whole is what we of the West are at
last learning to do. We welcome change for its own
sake and because of the joy we take in it we have added
a value to life. I think it is America that has taught us
this lesson, and if that is so it is a greater benefit which
that country has conferred upon the world than rag-
time, cocktails, the phonograph and the Pullman car.

But I do not suppose that anyone can wander through
these Buddhist countries, Burma, the Shan States and
Siam, without being intrigued by the doctrine of Karma
which is so inextricably interwoven with the habits,
thoughts and affections of the peoples with whom he is
thrown in contact. It is commonly thought that it was
invented by the Blessed One, but in fact it was current in
India in his time and he did no more than adopt it with
such modifications as were rendered necessary by his
disbelief in the soul For as everyone knows the most
important point of the Buddha’s teaching was that there
was no such thing as a soul or a self. Every person is a
putting together of quahties, material and mental ;
there can be no putting together without a becoming
different, and there can be no becoming different
without a passing away. Whatever has a beginning
also has an end. The thought is exhilarating like a
brisk winter morning when the sun shines and the road
over the Downs is springy under the feet Karma (I

163

venture to remind the reader) is the theory that a man’s
actions in one existence determine his fate in the next.
At death under the influence of the desire of life the
impermanent aggregation of qualities which was a man
reassembles to form another aggregation as imper-
manent. He is merely the present and temporary link
in a long chain of cause and effect. The law of Karma
prescribes that every act must have its result. It is the
only explanation of the evil of this world that does not
outrage the heart.

On a previous page I informed the kindly reader that
it was my habit to start the day with a perusal of a few
pages of a metaphysical work. It is a practice as
healthy to the soul as the morning bath is healthy to the
body. Though I have not the kind of intelligence that
moves easily among abstractions and I often do not
altogether understand what I read (this does not too
greatly distract me since I find that professional dialecti-
cians often complain that they cannot understand one
another) I read on and sometimes come upon a passage
that has a particular meaning for me. My way is
lightened now and then by a happy phrase, for the
philosophers of the past often wrote more than ordinarily
well, and since in the long run a philosopher only
describes himself, with his prejudices, his personal hopes
and his idiosyncrasies, and they were for the most part
men of robust character, I have often the amusement of
making acquaintance with a curious personality. In
this desultory way I have read most of the great philoso-
phers that the world has seen, trying to learn a little here
and there or to get some enlightenment on matters
that must puzzle everyone who makes his tentative way

164

through the labyrinthine jungle of this life ; nothing
has interested me more than the way they treat the
problem of evil. I cannot say that I have been greatly
enlightened. The best of them have no more to say
than that in the long run evil will be found to be good
and that we who suffer must accept our suffering with
an equal mind- In my perplexity I have read what the
theologians had to say on the subject. After all sin is
their province and so far as they are concerned the
question is simple : if God is good and all-powerful why
does he permit evil ? Their answers are many and
confused ; they satisfy neither the heart nor the head,
and for my part — I speak of these things humbly
because I am ignorant and it may be that though the
plain man must ask the question the answer can only be
understood by the expert — I cannot accept them.

Now it happened that one of the books I had
brought to read on the way was Bradley’s Appear-^
ance and Reality. I had read it before, but had found
it difficult and wanted to read it again, but since it
was an unwieldy volume I tore off the binding and
divided it into sections that I could conveniently put in
my pocket when, having read enough, I mounted my
pony and rode off from the bungalow in which I had
passed the night. It is good reading, and though it
scarcely convinces you it is often caustic, and the author
has a pleasant gift of irony. He is never pompous. He
handles the abstract with a light touch. But it is like
one of those cubist houses in an exhibition, very light
and trim and airy, but so severe in line and furnished
with such austere taste, that you cannot imagine
yourself toasting your toes by the fire and lounging in an

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easy chair with a comfortable book. But when I came
upon his treatment of the problem of evil I found
myself as honestly scandalised as the Pope at the sight
of a young woman’s shapely calves. The Absolute, I
read, is perfect, and evil, being but an appearance,
cannot but subserve to the perfection of the whole.
Error contributes to greater energy of life. Evil plays a
part in a higher end and in this sense unknowingly is
good. Tlie absolute is the richer for every discord.
And my memory brought back to me, I know not why, a
scene at the beginning of the war. It was in October
and our sensibilities were not yet blunted. A cold raw
night. There had been what those who took part in it
thought a battle, but which was so insignificant a
skirmish that the papers did not so much as refer to it,
and about a thousand men had been killed and wounded.
They lay on straw on the floor of a country church, and
the only light came from the candles on the altar. The
Germans were advancing and it was necessary to
evacuate them as quickly as possible. All through the
night the ambulance cars, without lights, drove back and
forth, and the wounded cried out to be taken, and some
died as they were being lifted on to the stretchers and
were thrown on the heap of dead outside the door, and
they were dirty and gory, and the church stank of blood
and the rankness of humanity. And there was one boy
who was so shattered that it was not worth while to
move him and as he lay there, seeing men on either side
of him being taken out, he screamed at the top of his
voice : je ne veux pas mourir. Je suis tropjeune, Je ne
veux pas mourir. And he went on screaming that he did
not want to die till he died. Of course this is no argu-

mcnt. It was but an inconsiderable incident the only
significance of which was that I saw it with my own eyes
and in my ears for days afterwards rang that despairing
cry, but a greater than I, a philosopher and a mathema-
tician into the bargain if you please, said that the heart
had its reasons which the head did not know, and (in the
grip of compound things, to use the Buddhist phrase, as
I am) this scene is to me a sufficient refutation of the
metaphysician’s fine-spun theories. But my heart can
accept the evils that befall me if they are the con-
sequence of actions that I (the I that is not my soul,
which perishes, but the result of my deeds in another
state of existence) did in past time, and I am resigned to
the evils that I see about me, the death of the young,
(the most bitter of all) the grief of the mothers that
bore them in anguish, poverty and sickness and frus-
trated hopes, if these evils are but the consequence of
the sins which those that suffer them once committed.
Here is an explanation that outrages neither the heart
nor the head ; there is only one fault that I can find in
it : it is incredible.

XXXI

The hotel faced the river. My room was dark,
one of a long line, with a verandah on each side of
it ; the breeze blew through, but it was stifling.
The dining-room was large and dim, and for coolness
sake the windows were shuttered. One was waited on
by silent Chinese boys I did not know why, the
insipid Eastern food sickened me . The heat of B angkok
was overwhelming. The wats oppressed me by their
garish magnificence, making my head ache, and their
fantastic ornaments filled me with malaise. All I saw
looked too bright, the crowds in the street tired me, and
the incessant din j angled my nerves . I felt very unwell,
but I was not sure whether my trouble was bodily or
spiritual (I am suspicious of the sensibility of the artist
and I have often dissipated a whole train of exquisite
and sombre thoughts by administering to myself a
little liver pill), so to settle the matter I took my tem-
perature. I was startled to see that it was a hundred
and five, I could not believe it, so I took it again ; it
was stiU a hundred and five. No travail of the soul
can cause anything like that. I went to bed and sent
for a doctor. He told me that I had probably got
malaria and took some of my blood to test ; when he
came back it was to say that there was no doubt about it
and to give me quinine. I remembered then that
towards the end of my journey dovm Siam the officer in

167 M

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command of the post had insisted that I should stay in
his own house. He gave me his best bedroom and was
so anxious that I should sleep in his grand European
bed, of varnished pitch-pine and all the way from
Bangkok, that I had not the heart to say that I preferred
my own little camp-bed, which had a mosquito net, to
his which had not. The anopheles snatched at the
golden opportunity.

It was apparently a bad attack, since for some days the
quinine had no effect on me, my temperature soared to
those vertiginous heights that are common in malaria
and neither wet sheets nor ice packs brought it down. I
lay there, panting and sleepless, and shapes of monstrous
pagodas thronged my brain and great gilded Buddhas
bore down on me. Those wooden rooms, with their
verandahs, made every sound frightfully audible to my
tortured ears and one morning I heard the manageress
of the hotel, an amiable creature but a good woman of
business, in her guttural German voice say to the
doctor : “ I can’t have him die here, you know. You
must take him to the hospital.” And the doctor
replied ; ** All right. But we’ll wait a day or two yet.”
” Well, don’t leave it too long,” she replied.

Then the crisis came. The sweat poured from me so
that soon my bed was soaking, as though I had had a
bath in it, and well-being descended upon me. I could
breathe easily. My head ached no longer. And then
when they carried me on to a long chair and I was free
from pain, I felt extraordinarily happy. My brain
seemed wonderfully clear. I was as weak as a new-
born child and for some days could do nothing but lie on
the terrace at the back of the hotel and look at the river

169

Motor launches bustled to and fro The sampans were
innumerable. Large steamers and sailing vessels came
up the river so that it had quite the air of a busy port ;
and if you have a passion for travel it is impossible to
look at the smallest, shabbiest, dirtiest sea-going tramp
without a thrill of emotion and a hankering to be on it
and on the way to some unknown haven. In the early
morning, before the heat of the day, the scene was gay
and lively ; and then again towards simdovm it was rich
with colour and vaguely sinister with the laden shadows
of the approaching night. I watched the steamers plod
slowly up and with a noisy rattling of chains drop their
anchors and I watched the three-masted barques drop
silently down with the tide.

For some reason that I forget I had not been able to
see the palace, but I did not regret it since it thus
retained for me the faint air of mystery which of all the
emotions is that which you can least find in Bangkok.
It is surrounded by a great white wall, strangely
crenellated, and the crenellations have the effect of a
row of lotus buds. At intervals are gateways at which
stand guards in odd Napoleonic costumes, and they
have a pleasantly operatic air so that you expect them
at any minute to break into florid song. Towards
evening the white wall becomes pink and translucent
and then above it, the dusk shrouding their garishness
with its own soft glamour, you see, higgledy-piggledy,
the gay, fantastic and multicoloured roofs of the
palace and the wats and the bright-hued tapering of the
pagodas. You divine wide courtyards, with lovely
gateways intricately decorated, in which oflBcials of the
court, in their sober but distinguished dress, are intent

upon secret affairs ; and you imagine walks lined with
trim, clipped trees and temples sombre and magnificent,
throne-halls rich with gold and precious stones and
apartments, vaguely scented, dark and cool, in which
lie in careless profusion the storied treasures of the East.

And because I had nothing to do except look at the
river and enjoy the weakness that held me blissfully to
my chair I invented a fairy story Here it is

XXXII

First the King of Siam had two daughters and he
called them Night and Day. Then he had two
more, so he changed the names of the first ones
and called the four of them after the seasons. Spring and
Autumn, Winter and Summer. But in course of time he
had three others and he changed their names again and
called all seven by the days of the week. But when his
eighth daughter was bom he did not know what to do till
he suddenly thought of the months of the year. The
Queen said there were only twelve and it confused her
to have to remember so many new names, but the King
had a methodical mind and when he made it up he never
could change it if he tried. He changed the names of
all his daughters and called them January, February,
March (though of course in Siamese) till he came to the
youngest who was called August, and the next one was
called September.

“ That only leaves October, November, and Decem-
ber,” said the Queen. “ And after that we shall have
to begin all over again.”

” No, we shan’t,” said the King, “ because I think
twelve daughters are enough for any man and after the
birth of dear little December I shall be reluctantly
compelled to cut off your head.”

He cried bitterly when he said this, for he was ex-
tremely fond of the Queen. Of course it made the

m

Queen very uneasy because she knew that it would
distress the King very much if he had to cut off her head.
And it would not be very nice for her. But it so hap-
pened that there was no need for either of them to
worry because September was the last daughter they
ever had. The Queen only had sons after that and they
were called by the letters of the alphabet, so there was
no cause for anxiety there for a long time, since she had
only reached the letter J.

Now the King of Siam’s daughters had had their
characters permanently embittered by having to change
their names in this way, and the older ones whose names
of coiurse had been changed oftener than the others had
their characters more permanently embittered. But
September who had never known what it was to be
called anything but September (except of course by her
sisters who because their characters were embittered
called her all sorts of names) had a very sweet and
charming nature.

The King of Siam had a habit which I think might be
usefully imitated in Europe. Instead of receiving
presents on his birthday he gave them and it looks as
though he liked it, for he used often to say he was sorry
he had only been born on one day and so only had one
birthday in the year. But in this way he managed in
course of time to give away all his wedding presents'and
the loyal addresses which the mayors of the cities in
Siam presented him with and all his old crowns which
had gone out of fashion. year on his birthday, not
having anything else handy, he gave each of his daughters
a beautiful green parrot in a beautiful golden cage
There were nine of them and on each cage was written

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the name of the month which was the name of the
princess it belonged to. The nine princesses were
very proud of their parrots and they spent an hour
every day (for like their father they were of a methodical
turn of mind) in teaching them to talk. Presently all
the parrots could say God Save the King (in Siamese,
which is very difficult) and some of them could say Pretty
Polly in no less than seven oriental languages. But
one day when the Princess September went to say good-
morning to her parrot she foxmd it lying dead at the
bottom of its golden cage. She burst into a flood of
tears, and nothing that her Maids of Honour could say
comforted her. She cried so much that the Maids of
Honour, not knowing what to do, told the Queen, and
the Queen said it was stuiST and nonsense and the child
had better go to bed without any supper. The Maids
of Honour wanted to go to a party, so they put the
Princess September to bed as quickly as they could
and left her by herself. And while she lay in her bed,
crying still even though she felt rather hungry, she
saw a little bird hop into her room. She took her
thumb out of her mouth and sat up. Then the little
bird began to sing and he sang a beautiful song aU
about the lake in the King’s garden and the willow-
trees that looked at themselves in the still water and
the gold fish that glided in and out of the branches
that were reflected in it. When he had finished
the Princess was not crying any more and she quite
forgot that she had had no supper.

“ That was a very nice song,” she said.

The little bird gave her a bow, for artists have
naturally good maimers, and they like to be appreciated

174

“ Would you care to have me instead of your
parrot ? said the little bird. It’s true that I'm not
so pretty to look at, but on the other hand I have a
much better voice.”

The Princess September clapped her hands with
delight and then the little bird hopped on to the end
of her bed and sang her to sleep.

When she awoke next day the little bird was still
sitting there, and as she opened her eyes he said good
morning. The Maids of Honour brought in her break-
fast, and he ate rice out of her hand and he had his
bath in her saucer. He drank out of it too . The Maids
of Honour said they didn’t think it was very polite to
drink one’s bath water, but the Princess September
said that was the artistic temperament. When he had
finished his breakfast he began to sing again so beauti-
fully that the Maids of Honour were quite surprised,
for they had never heard anything like it, and the
Princess September was very proud and happy.

“ Now I want to show you to my eight sisters,” said
the princess.

She stretched out the first finger of her right hand
so that it served as a perch and the little bird flew down
and sat on it. Then, followed by her Maids of Honour,
she went through the palace and called on each of the
Princesses in turn, starting with January, for she was
mindful of etiquette, and going all the way down to
August. And for each of the princesses the little bird
sang a different song. But the parrots could only say
God save the King and Pretty Polly. At last she
showed the little bird to the King and Queen. They
were surprised and delighted.

175

“ I knew I was right to send you to bed without any
supper,” said the Queen.

“ This bird sings much better than the parrots,”
said the King.

“ I should have thought you got quite tired of
hearing people say God save the King,” said the Queen.
“ I canT think why those girls wanted to teach their
parrots to say it too.”

“ The sentiment is admirable,” said the King, “ and
I never mind how often I hear it. But I do get tired
of hearing those parrots say Pretty Polly.”

" They say it in seven different languages,” said the
princesses.

** I daresay they do,” said the King, “ but it reminds
me too much of my councillors. They say the same
thing in seven different ways and it never means
anything in any way they say it.”

The princesses, their characters as I have already
said being naturally embittered, were vexed at this,
and the parrots looked very glum indeed. But the
Princess September ran through all the rooms of the
palace, singing like a lark, while the little bird flew
round and round her, singing like a nightingale, which
indeed it was.

Things went on like this for several days and then
the eight princesses put their heads together. They
went to September and sat down in a circle round her,
hiding their feet as is proper for Siamese princesses
to do.

“ My poor September,” they said. “ We are sorry
for the death of your beautiful parrot. It must be
dreadful for you not to have a pet bird as we have.

176

So we have all put our pocket-money together and we
are going to buy you a lovely green and yellow parrot.’’

“ Thank you for nothing/’ said September. (This
was not very civil of her, but Siamese princesses are
sometimes a little short with one another.) “ I have
a pet bird which sings the most charming songs to me
and I don’t know what on earth I should do with a
green and yellow parrot.”

January sniffed, then February sniffed, then March
sniffed : in fact all the princesses sniffed, but in their
proper order of precedence. When they had finished
September asked them :

” Why do you sniff? Have you all got colds in the
head ? ”

Well, my dear,” they said, ** it’s absurd to talk of
^our bird when the little fellow flies in and out just
as he hkes.” They looked round the room and raised
their eyebrows so high that their foreheads entirely
disappeared.

You’ll get dreadful wrinkles,” said September.

” Do you mind our asking where your bird is now ? ”
they said.

He’s gone to pay a visit to his father-in-law,” said
the Princess September.

“ And what makes you think he’ll come back ? ”
asked the Princesses.

” He always does come back,” said September.

” Well, my dear,” said the eight princesses, “ if
you’ll take our advice you won’t run any risks like that.
If he comes back, and mind you, if he does you’ll be
lucky, pop him into the cage and keep him there.
That’s the only way you can be sure of him/’

177

** But I like to have him fly about the room/* said
the Princess September.

Safety first/’ said her sisters ominously.

They got up and walked out of the room, shaking
their heads, and they left September very uneasy. It
seemed to her that her little bird was away a long time
and she could not think what he was doing. Something
might have happened to him. What with hawks and
men with snares you never knew what trouble he might
get into. Besides, he might forget her, or he might
take a fancy to somebody else ; that would be
dreadful; oh, she wished he were safely back again,
and in the golden cage that stood there empty and
ready. For when the Maids of Honour had buried
the dead parrot they had left the cage in its old place.

Suddenly September heard a tweet-tweet just behind
her ear and she saw the little bird sitting on her
shoulder. He had come in so quietly and alighted so
softly that she had not heard him.

“ I wondered what on earth had become of you,**
said the Princess.

** I thought you’d wonder that,** said the little bird.

The fact is I very nearly didn’t come back to-night
at all. My father-in-law was giving a party and they
all wanted me to stay, but I thought you’d be anxious.”

Under the circumstances this was a very unfortunate
remark for the little bird to make.

September felt her heart go thump, thump against
her chest, and she made up her mind to take no more
risks. She put up her hand and took hold of the bird-
This he was quite used to, she liked feeling his heart
go pit-a-pat, so fast, in the hollow of her hand, and I

178

think he liked the soft warmth of her little hand. So
the bird suspected nothing and he was so surprised
when she carried him over to the cage, popped him in,
and shut the door on him that for a moment he could
think of nothing to say But in a moment or two he
hopped up on the ivory perch and said :

“ What is the joke ? ”

“ There’s no joke,” said September, ” but some of
mamma’s cats are prowling about to-night, and I think
you’re much safer in there.”

** I can’t think why the Queen wants to have all those
cats,” said the little bird, rather crossly.

** Well, you see, they’re very special cats,” said the
princess, ” they have blue eyes and a kink in their
tails, and they’re a speciality of the royal family, if you
understand what I mean.”

” Perfectly,” said the Uttle bird, ” but why did you
put me in this cage without saying anything about it ?
I don’t think it’s the sort of place I like.”

“ I shouldn’t have slept a wink all night if I hadn’t
known you were safe.”

” Well, just for this once I don’t mind,” said the
little bird, ” so long as you let me out in the morning.”

He ate a very good supper and then began to sing.
But in the middle of his song he stopped.

” I don’t know what is the matter with me,” he said,
” but I don’t feel like singing to-night.”

“ Very well,” said September, “ go to sleep instead.”

So he put his head under his wing and in a minute
was fast asleep. September went to sleep too. But
when the dawn broke she was awakened by the little
bird calling her at the top of his voice

179

“ Wake up, wake up,*’ he said. “ Open the door of
this cage and let me out. I want to have a good fly
while the dew is still on the ground.*'

“ You’re much better off where you are,” said
September. “You have a beautiful golden cage. It
was made by the best workman in my papa s kingdom,
and my papa was so pleased with it that he cut off his
head so that he should never make another.”

“ Let me out, let me out,” said the little bird

“ You’ll have three meals a day served by my Maids
of Honour ; you’ll have nothing to worry you from
morning till night, and you can sing to your heart’s
content.”

“ Let me out, let me out,” said the little bird. And
he tried to slip through the bars of the cage, but of
course he couldn’t, and he beat against the door but
of course he couldn’t open it. Then the eight princesses
came in and looked at him. They told September
she was very wise to take their advice. They said he
would soon get used to the cage and in a few days
would quite forget that he had ever been free. The
little bird said nothing at all while they were there,
but as soon as they were gone he began to cry again ;
“ Let me out, let me out.”

“ Don’t be such an old silly,” said September. “ I’ve
only put you in the cage because I’m so fond of you.
1 know what’s good for you much better than you do
yourself. Sing me a little song and I’ll give you a
piece of brown sugar.”

But the little bird stood in the comer of his cage,
looking out at the blue sky, and never sang a note.
He never sang all day

180

** What’s the good of sulking ? *’ said September.
“Why don’t you sing and forget your troubles ? ”

“ How can I sing ? ’’ answered the bird. “ I want
to see the trees and the lake and the green rice growing
in the fields.”

“ If that’s all you want I’ll take you for a walk/*
said September.

She picked up the cage and went out and she walked
down to the lake round which grew the willow trees,
and she stood at the edge of the rice fields that stretched
as far as the eye could see.

“ I’ll take you out every day,” she said. “ I love
you and I only want to make you happy.”

“ It’s not the same thing,” said the little bird. “ The
rice fields and the lake and the willow trees look quite
difierent when you see them through the bars of a
cage.”

So she brought him home again and gave him his
supper. But he wouldn’t eat a thing. The Princess
was a little anxious at this, and asked her sisters
what they thought about it.

“ You must be firm,” they said.

“ But if he won’t eat, he’ll die,” she answered.

“ That would be very ungrateful of him,” they said.
“ He must know that you’re only thinking of his own
good. If he’s obstinate and dies it’ll serve him right
and you’ll be well rid of him.”

September didn’t see how that was going to do her
very much good, but they were eight to one and all
older than she, so she said nothing.

“ Perhaps he’ll have got used to his cage by to-
morrow,” she said.

ISl

And next day when she awoke she cried out good-
moming in a cheerful voice. She got no answer. She
jumped out of bed and ran to the cage. She gave a
startled cry, for there the little bird lay, at the bottom,
on his side, with his eyes closed, and he looked as if
he were dead. She opened the door and putting her
hand in lifted him out. She gave a sob of relief, for
she felt that his little heart was beating still.

“ Wake up, wake up, little bird,” she said.

She began to cry and her tears fell on the little bird.
He opened his eyes and felt that the bars of the
cage were no longer round him.

“ I cannot sing unless I’m free and if I cannot sing,
I die,” he said.

The Princess gave a great sob

“ Then take your freedom,” she said, “ I shut you
in a golden cage because I loved you and wanted to
have you all to myself. But I never knew it would
kill you. Go. Fly away among the trees that are
roimd the lake and fly over the green rice fields. I
love you enough to let you be happy in your own way.”

She threw open the window and gently placed the
little bird on the sill. He shook himself a little.

Come and go as you will, little bird,” she said- I
will never put you in a cage any more.”

“ I will come because I love you, little princess,” said
the bird. ” And I will sing you the loveliest songs I
know. I shall go far away, but I shall always come
back, and I shall never forget you.” He gave himself
another shake. ** Good gracious me, how stiflF I am,”
he said.

Then he opened his wings and flew right away into

the blue. But the little princess burst into tears, for
it is very difficult to put the happiness of someone you
love before your own, and with her little bird far out
of sight she felt on a sudden very lonely. When her
sisters knew what had happened they mocked her and
said that the little bird would never return. But he
did at last. And he sat on September’s shoulder and
ate out of her hand and sang her the beautiful songs
he had learned while he was flying up and down the
fair places of the world. September kept her window
open day and night so that the little bird might come
into her room whenever he felt inclined, and this was
very good for her ; so she grew extremely beautiful.
And when she was old enough she married the King
of Cambodia and was carried all the way to the city
in which he lived on a white elephant. But her sisters
never slept with their windows open, so they grew
extremely ugly as well as disagreeable, and when the
time came to marry them off they were given away
to the King’s Councillors with a pound of tea and a
Siamese cat.

#

XXXIII

WHEN I was strong enough a kind friend,
manager of the B-A.T., took me in his
company’s launch to see the klongs, or
canals, which give Bangkok its individuality. It appears
that until a few years ago no one was allowed without
the royal permission to build on land and the houses
stood on piles driven into the mud-banks at the water’s
edge or were constructed on floating pontoons moored
to the side. The Menam, broad and handsome, is the
city’s main highway. Going up it, you pass wats
placed advantageously here and there along the banks ;
and the high wall of the palace with the crowded
splendour of the buildings behind it ; public buildings,
very grand and new ; the trim, green, old-fashioned
and dignified British legation and then untidy wharves.
You turn down into one of the main klongs, the Oxford
Street of Bangkok, and on each side are houseboats
on which are shops open to the river front, and people
go about making their purchases in sampans. Some
of the canals are so broad that pontoons are moored
in midstream and thus make a double or a treble row
of shops. Little steamers, the omnibuses of the thrifty,
pufT up and down quickly, crowded with passengers ;
and as the rich in their great cars splash the passers-by
on a rainy day in London, so opulent Chinamen in
motor-launches speed along with a wash that makes the
183

N

tiny dug-outs rock dangerously Great barges are rowed
slowly up and down, laden with wares, and these are
the horse-drawn wagons that carry goods to market
or from the wholesale merchant to the shopkeeper.
Then there are the pedlars, like street-hawkers with a
push-cart, who go about in little boats with their fish,
their meat, or their vegetables. A woman, sitting
under a yellow umbrella of oiled paper, paddles them
along with a fum and easy stroke. Finally there are
the pedestrians, single persons in a sampan who paddle
to and fro bent on some errand or idly as one might
take a stroll down Piccadilly. To unaccustomed eyes
it is surprising to see a decent old woman with a mop
of grey hair deftly manoeuvring her canoe amid the
traffic as she goes methodically about her day’s shopping.
And like children scampering across the road tiny boys
and girls, sometimes stark naked and seldom with more
than a rag round their loins, dart in and out among
the steamers and motor-boats in tiny little dug-outs
so that you wonder that they are not run down. On
the houseboats people lounge about idly ; men mostly
half naked wash themselves or their children, and here
and there half-a-dozen urchins scramble about in the
water.

And as you pass down a klong you get a sight of
little creeks running out of it, only large enough for a
sampan to enter, and you have a glimpse of green trees
and houses sheltering amongst them. They are like
the secluded courts and alleys that you find in London
leading out of a busy thoroughfare. And just as
the main street of a large town winds into a suburban
road the klong narrows, the traffic dwindles, and now

there is but one houseboat here and there, as it
might be a general store to provide for the varied
wants of the neighbours ; and then the trees on the
banks grow thick, cocoanuts and fruit trees, and you
come but now and then upon a little brown house, the
home of some Siamese who does not fear solitude. The
plantations grow more extensive and your klong, which
first was a busy street, then a respectable road through
the suburbs, now becomes a leafy country lane.

XXXIV

I LEFT Bangkok on a shabby little boat of four or
five hundred tons. The dingy saloon, which
served also as dining-room, had two narrow tables
down its length with swivel chairs on both sides of
them. The cabins were in the bowels of the ship and
they were extremely dirty. Cockroaches walked about
on the floor and however placid your temperament it
is difficult not to be startled when you go to the wash-
basin to wash your hands and a huge cockroach stalks
leisurely out.

We dropped down the river, broad and lazy and
smiling, and its green banks were dotted with little huts
on piles standing at the water’s edge. We crossed the
bar; and the open sea, blue and still, spread before me.
The look of it and the smell of it filled me with elation.

I had gone on board early in the morning and soon
discovered that I was thrown amid the oddest col-
lection of persons I had ever encountered. There
were two French traders and a Belgian colonel, an
Italian tenor, the American proprietor of a circus
with his wife, and a retired French official with his.
The circus proprietor was what is termed a good
mixer, a type which according to your mood you fly
from or welcome, but I happened to be feeling much
pleased with life and before I had been on board
an hour we had shaken for drinks, and he had shown

i86

187

me his animals. He was a very short fat man and
his stingah-shifter, white but none too clean, outlined
the noble proportions of his abdomen, but the collar
was so tight that you wondered he did not choke. He
had a red, cleanshaven face, a merry blue eye and
short, untidy sandy hair. He wore a battered topee
well on the back of his head. His name was Wilkins
and he was bom in Portland, Oregon. It appears that
the Oriental has a passion for the circus and Mr. Wilkins
for twenty years had been travelling up and down the
East from Port Said to Yokohama (Aden, Bombay,
Madras, Calcutta, Rangoon, Singapore, Penang, Bang-
kok, Saigon, Hue, Hanoi, Hong-Kong, Shanghai, their
names roll on the tongue savourily, crowding the
imagination with sunshine and strange soirnds and a
multicoloured activity) with his menagerie and his
merry-go-rounds It was a strange life he led, imusual
and one that, one would have thought, must offer the
occasion for all sorts of curious experiences, but the odd
thing about him was that he was a perfectly common-
place little man and you would have been prepared
to find him running a garage or keeping a third-rate
hotel in a second-rate town in California. The fact is,
and I have noticed it so often that I do not know why
it should always surprise me, that the extraordinariness
of a man's life does not make him extraordinary, but
contrariwise if a man is extraordinary he will make
extraordinariness out of a life as humdrum as that of
a country curate. I wish I could feel it reasonable to
tell here the story of the hermit I went to see on an
island in the Torres Straits, a shipwrecked mariner who
had lived there alone for thirty years, but when you

1S8

are witing a book you are imprisoned by the four walls
of your subject and though for the entertainment of
my own digressing mind I set it down now I should be
forced in the end by my sense of what is fit to go
between two covers and what is not, to cut it out.
Anyhow, the long and short of it is that notwithstanding
this long and intimate communion with nature and his
thoughts the man was as dull, insensitive and vulgar
an oaf at the end of this experience as he must have
been at the beginning.

The Italian singer passed us and Mr. Wilkins told
me that he was a Neapolitan who was on his way to
Hong-Kong to rejoin his company which he had been
forced to leave owing to an attack of malaria in Bangkok.
He was an enormous fellow, and very fat, and when
he flung himself into a chair it creaked with dismay.
He took off his topee, displaying a great head of long,
curly, greasy hair, and ran podgy and beringed fingers
through it.

** He ain’t very sociable,” said Mr. Wilkins. “ He
took the cigar I gave him, but he wouldn’t have a drink.
I shouldn’t wonder if there wasn’t somethin* rather
queer about him. Nasty lookin’ guy, ain’t he ? ”

Then a little fat woman in white came on deck
holding by the hand a Wa-Wa monkey. It walked
solemnly by her side.

” This is Mrs. Wilkins,” said the circus proprietor,
” and our youngest son. Draw up a chair, Mrs.
Wilkins, and meet this gentleman. I don’t know his
name, but he’s already paid for two drinks for me
and if he can’t shake any better than he has yet
he’ll pay for one for you too.”

189

Mrs, Wilkins sat down with an abstracted, serious
look, and with her eyes on the blue sea suggested
that she did not see why she shouldn’t have a
lemonade.

My, it’s hot,” she murmured, fanning herself with
the topee which she took oflP,

** Mrs. Wilkins feels the heat,” said her husband.

She’s had twenty years of it now.”

“ Twenty-two and a half,” said Mrs. Wilkins, still
looking at the sea.

“ And she’s never got used to it yet.”

“ Nor never shall and you know it,” said Mrs. Wilkins.

She was just the same size as her husband and just as
fat, and she had a round red face like his and the same
sandy, untidy hair. I wondered if they had married
because they were so exactly alike, or if in the course
of years they had acquired this astonishing resemblance.
She did not turn her head but continued to look absently
at the sea.

“ Have you shown him the animals ? ” she asked.

“ You bet your life I have.”

What did he think of Percy ? ”

” Thought him fine.”

I could not but feel that I was being unduly left out
of a conversation of which I was at all events partly
the subject, so I asked :

Who’s Percy ? ”

“ Percy’s our eldest son. There’s a flyin’-fish, Elmer.
He’s the oran-utan. Did he eat his food well this
morning ? ”

“ Fine. He’s the biggest oran-utan in captivity.
I wouldn’t take a thousand dollars for him.”

190

“ And what relation is the elephant ? ” I asked.

Mrs. Wilkins did not look at me, but with her blue
eyes still gazed indifferently at the sea.

** He*s no relation,” she answered. “ Only a friend.”

The boy brought lemonade for Mrs. Wilkins, a
whisky and soda for her husband and a gin and tonic
for me. We shook dice and I signed the chit.

** It must come expensive if he always loses when
he shakes,” Mrs. Wilkins murmured to the coast-line.

I guess Egbert would like a sip of your lemonade,
my dear,” said Mr. Wilkins.

Mrs. Wilkins slightly turned her head and looked at
the monkey sitting on her lap.

** Would you like a sip of mother’s lemonade,
Egbert ? ”

The monkey gave a little squeak and putting her
arm round him she handed him a straw. The monkey
sucked up a little lemonade and having drunk enough
sank back against Mrs. Wilkins’ ample bosom.

Mrs, Wilkins thinks the world of Egbert,” said her
husband. “You can’t wonder at it, he’s her youngest. ’ ’

Mrs. Wilkins took another straw and thoughtfully
drank her lemonade.

“ Egbert’s all right,” she remarked, “ There’s
nothin’ wrong with Egbert.”

Just then the French official who had been sitting
down got up and began walking up and down. He had
been accompanied on board by the French minister at
Bangkok, one or two secretaries and a prince of the
Royal Family. There had been a great deal of bowing
and shaking of hands and as the boat slipped away
from the quay much waving of hats and handkerchiefs.

191

He was evidently a person of consequence. I had
heard the Captain address him as Monsieur le
Gouvemeur.

“ That’s the big noise on this boat/’ said Mr. Wilkins.
“ He was governor of one of the French colonies and
now he’s makin* a tour of the world. He came to see
my circus at Bangkok. I guess I’ll ask him what he’ll
have. What shall I call him, my dear ? ”

Mrs. Wilkins slowly turned her head and looked at
the Frenchman, with the rosette of the legion of honour
in his button hole, pacing up and down.

“ Don’t call him anythin’,” she said. “ Show him
a hoop and he’ll jump right through it.”

I could not but laugh. Monsieur le Gouvemeur was
a little man, well below the average height, and smally
made, with a very ugly little face and thick, almost
negroid features ; and he had a bushy grey head, bushy
grey eyebrows and a bushy grey moustache. He did
look a little like a poodle and he had the poodle’s soft,
intelligent and shining eyes. Next time he passed us
Mr. Wilkins called out :

“ Monsoo. Quest ce que votes prenez ? ” I cannot
reproduce the eccentricities of his accent. “ Une petite
verre de porto*’ He turned to me. ” Foreigners, they
all drink porto. You’re always safe with that.”

“ Not the Dutch,” said Mrs. Wilkins, with a
look at the sea. ” They won’t touch nothin’ but
Schnaps.”

The distinguished Frenchman stopped and looked at
Mr. Wilkins with some bewilderment. Whereupon
Mr. Wilkins tapped his breast and said :

” Moa, proprietarre Cirque. Vous avez visiie”

192

Then, for a reason that escaped me, Mr. Wilkins
made his arms into a hoop and outlined the gestures
that represented a poodle jumping through it. Then
he pointed at the Wa-wa that Mrs. Wilkins was still
holding on her lap.

** La petit Jils de mon he said.

Light broke upon the governor and he burst into a
peculiarly musical and infectious laugh. Mr. Wilkins
began laughing too.

** 0w«, ouif'* he cried. “ Moa, circus proprietor.
Une petite verre de porto, Oui. Oat. West ce pas 9 ”

** Mr. Wilkins talks French like a Frenchman,” Mrs.
Wilkins informed the passing sea.

“ Mais trhs vokmtierSf* said the governor, still smiling.
I drew him up a chair and he sat down with a bow to
Mrs. Wilkins

Tell poodle-face his name’s Egbert,” she said,
looking at the sea.

I called the boy and we ordered a round of drinks.

“ You sign the chit, Elmer,” she said. “ It’s not a
bit of good Mr. What’s-his-name shakin’ if he can’t
shake nothin* better than a pair of treys.”

“ Fous comprenez le frangais^ madame 9 ” asked the
governor politely.

“ He wants to know if you speak French, my dear.”

** Where does he think I was raised ? Naples ? ”

Then the governor, with exuberant gesticulation,
burst into a torrent of English so fantastic that it
required all my knowledge of French to imderstand
what he was talking about.

Presently Mr. Wilkins took him down to look at his
animals and a little later we assembled in the stuffy

19^

saloon for luncheon. The governor s wife appeared
and was put on the captain’s right. The governor
explained to her who we all were and she gave us a
gracious bow. She was a large woman, tail and of a
robust build, of fifty-five perhaps, and she was dressed
somewhat severely in black silk. On her head she
wore a huge round topee. Her features were so large
and regular, her form so statuesque, that you were
reminded of the massive females who take part in pro-
cessions. She would have admirably suited the role
of Columbia or Britannia in a patriotic demonstration.
She towered over her diminutive husband like a sky-
scraper over a shack. He talked incessantly, with
vivacity and wit, and when he said anything amusing
her heavy features relaxed into a large, fond smile.

“ Que iu es bite, mm she said. She turned to

the captain. “You must not pay any attention to
him. He is always like that,”

We had indeed a very amusing meal and when it
was over we separated to our various cabins to sleep
away the heat of the afternoon. On such a small boat,
having once made the acquaintance of my fellow
passengers, it would have been impossible, even had I
wished it, not to pass with them every moment of the
day that I was not in my cabin. The only person who
held himself aloof was the Italian tenor. He spoke
to no one, but sat by himself as far forward as he could
get, twanging a guitar in an undertone so that you had
to strain your ears to catch the notes. We remained
in sight of land and the sea was like a pail of milk.
Talking of one thing and another we watched the day
decline, we dined, and then we sat out again on deck

194

under the stars The two traders played piquet in
the hot saloon, but the Belgian Colonel joined our
little group. He was shy and fat and opened his mouth
only to utter a civility. Soon, influenced perhaps by
the night and encouraged by the darkness that gave
him, up there in the bows, the sensation of being alone
with the sea, the Italian tenor, accompanying himself
on his guitar, began to sing, first in a low tone, and
then a little louder, till presently, his music captivating
him, he sang with all his might. He had the real
Italian voice, all macaroni, olive oil and sunshine,
and he sang the Neapolitan songs that I had heard
in my youth in the Piazza San Ferdinando, and frag-
ments from La BoMme^ and Tramata and Rigoletto. He
sang 'with emotion and false emphasis and his tremolo
reminded you of every third-rate Italian tenor you had
ever heard, but there in the openness of that lovely
night his exaggerations only made you snodle and you
could not but feel in your heart a lazy sensual pleasure.
He sang for an hour, perhaps, and we all fell silent ;
then he was still, but he did not move and we saw his
huge bulk dimly outlined against the luminous sky.

I saw that the little French governor had been holding
the hand of his large wife and the sight was absurd and
touching.

“ Do you know that this is the anniversary of the day
on which I first saw my wife,” he said, suddenly breaking
the silence which had certainly weighed on him, for I
had never met a more loquacious creature. It is also
the anniversary of the day on which she promised to
be my wife. And, which will surprise you, they were
one and the same.”

195

“ Voyons, mon ami,*' said the lady, “ you are not
going to bore our friends with that old story. You are
really quite insupportable/*

But she spoke with a smile on her large, firm face,
and in a tone that suggested that she was quite
willing to hear it again.

** But it will interest them, mon petit ckou** It was
in this way that he always addressed his wife and it
was fumy to hear this imposing and even majestic lady
thus addressed by her small husband. “ Will it not,
monsieur ? ” he asked me. “ It is a romance and who
does not like romance, especially on such a night as
this?**

I assured the governor that we were aU anxious to
hear and the Belgian colonel took the opportunity once
more to be polite.

“ You see, ours was a marriage of convenience pure
and simple.

“ Cest vrai," said the lady. “ It would be stupid to
deny it. But sometimes love comes after marriage
and not before, and then it is better. It lasts longer.**

I could not but notice that the governor gave her
hand an affectionate little squeeze.

“ You see, I had been in the navy, and when I retired
I was forty-nine. I was strong and active and I was
very anxious to find an occupation. I looked about ;
I pulled all the strings I could. Fortunately I had a
cousin who had some political importance. It is one
of the advantages of democratic government that if
you have sufficient influence merit, which otherwise
might pass unnoticed, generally receives its due
reward,**

196

You are modesty itself, mon pamre ami,"' said

she.

“ And presently I was sent for by the Minister to
the Colonies and offered the post of governor in a
certain colony. It was a very distant spot that they
wished to send me to and a lonely one, but I had
spent my life wandering from port to port, and that
was not a matter that troubled me. I accepted with
joy. The minister told me that I must be ready to
start in a month. I told him that would be easy for
an old bachelor who had nothing much in the world
but a few clothes and a few books.

** ‘ Comment i mon lieutenant he cried. ‘ You are a
bachelor ? ’

** * Certainly,' I answered. ‘ And I have every
intention of remaining one.*

“ ‘ In that case I am afraid I must withdraw my
offer. For this position it is essential that you should
be married.*

“ It is too long a story to tell you, but the gist of it
was that owing to the scandal my predecessor, a
bachelor, had caused by having native girls to live in
the Eesidency and the consequent complaints of the
white people, planters and the wives of functionaries,
it had been decided that the next governor must be a
model of respectability. I expostulated. I argued.
I recapitulated my services to the country and the
services my cousin could render at the next elections.
Nothing would serve. The minister was adamant.

** ‘ But what can I do ? * I cried with dismay.

‘ You can marry,* said the minister.

* Mats voytmsy monsiejir h mtmsvrey I do not know

19T

any women. I am not a lady’s man and I am forty
nine. How do you expect me to find a wife ? ’

“ ‘ Nothing is more simple. Put an advertisement
in the paper/

I was confounded. I did not know what to say.

“ ‘ Well, think it over,’ said the minister, ‘ If you
can find a wife in a month you can go, but no wife no
job. That is my last word.’ He smiled a little, to
him the situation was not without humour. * And if
you think of advertising I recommend the Figaro^

“ I Tvalked avay from the ministry with death in my
heart. I knew the place to which they desired to
appoint me and I knew it would suit me very well to
live there ; the climate was tolerable and the Residency
was spacious and comfortable. The notion of being a
governor was far from displeasing me and, having
nothing much but my pension as a naval officer, the
salary was not to be despised. Suddenly I made up
my mind. I walked to the offices of the Figaro^ com-
posed an advertisement and handed it in for insertion.
But I can tell you, when I walked up the Champs
Elysees afterwards my heart was beating much more
furiously than it had ever done when my ship was
stripped for action.”

The governor leaned forward and put his hand im-
pressively on my knee.

” Mon cher monsieur^ you will never believe it, but
I had four thousand three hxmdred and seventy-two
replies. It was an avalanche. I had expected half-a-
dozen ; I had to take a cab to take the letters to my
hotel. My room was swamped with them. There were
four thousand three hundred and seventy-two women

198

who were willing to share my solitude and be a
governor’s lady. It was staggering. They were of all
ages from seventeen to seventy. There were maidens
of irreproachable ancestry and the highest culture,
there were unmarried ladies who had made a little
slip at one period of their career and now desired to
regularise their situation ; there were widows whose
husbands had died in the most harrowing circumstances ;
and there were widows whose children would be a
solace to my old age. They were blonde and dark,
tall and short, fat and thin ; some could speak five
languages and others could play the piano. Some
offered me love and some craved for it ; some could
only give me a solid friendship but mingled with esteem ;
some had a fortune and others golden prospects. I
was overwhelmed. I was bewildered. At last I lost
my temper, for I am a passionate man, and I got up
and I stamped on all those letters and all those photo-
graphs and I cried : I will marry none of them. It
was hopeless, I had less than a month now and I could
not see over four thousand aspirants to my hand in
that time. I felt that if I did not see them all, I
should be tortured for the rest of my life by the thought
that I had missed the one woman the fates had destined
to make me happy. I gave it up as a bad job.

** I went out of my room hideous with all those
photographs and littered papers and to drive care away
went on to the boulevard and sat down at the Ca£6
de la Paix. After a time I saw a friend passing and he
nodded to me and smiled. I tried to smile but my
heart was sore. I realised that I must spend the years
that remained to me in a cheap pension at Toulon or

199

Brest as an officier de marine en reiraite. Zut / My
friend stopped and coining up to me sat down.

“ ‘ What is making you look so glum, mon cher f ’ he
asked me. * You who are the gayest of mortals.'

“ I was glad to have someone in whom I could confide
my troubles and told him the whole story. He laughed
consumedly. I have thought since that perhaps the
incident had its comic side, but at the time, I assure
you, I could see in it nothing to laugh at. I mentioned
the fact to my fnend not without asperity and then,
controlling his mirth as best he could, he said to me :
‘ But, my dear fellow, do you really want to marry ? ’
At this I entirely lost my temper.

“ * You are completely idiotic,* I said. ‘ If I did
not want to marry, and what is more marry at once,
within the next fortnight, do you imagine that I should
have spent three days reading love letters from women
I have never set eyes on ? ’

* Cahn yourself and listen to me,’ he replied. ‘ I
have a cousin who lives in Geneva. She is Swiss,
du reste^ and she belongs to a family of the greatest
respectability in the republic. Her morals are without
reproach, she is of a suitable age, a spinster for she
has spent the last fifteen years nursing an invalid mother
who has lately died, she is well educated and pardessus
le marcM she is not ugly/

“ ‘ It sounds as though she were a paragon,’ I said.

‘ I do not say that, but she has been well-brought
up and would become the position you have to offer
her/

‘ There is one thing you forget. WTiat inducement
would there be for her to give up her fiiends and her

O

200

accustomed life to accompany in exile a man of forty-
nine who is by no means a beauty ? ’ ”

Monsieur le Gouverneur broke off his narrative and
shrugging his shoulders so emphatically that his head
almost sank between them, turned to us.

“ I am ugly. I admit it. I am of an ugliness that
does not inspire terror or respect, but only ridicule,
and that is the worst ugliness of all. When people see
me for the first time they do not shrink with horror,
there would evidently be something flattering in that,
they burst out laughing. Listen, when the admirable
Mr. Wilkins showed me his animals this morning Percy,
the oran-utan, held out his arms and but for the
bars of the cage would have clasped me to his bosom
as a long lost brother. Once indeed when I was at the
Jardin des Plantes in Paris and was told that one of
the anthropoid apes had escaped I made my way to
the exit as quickly as I could in fear that, mistaking
me for the refugee, they would seize me and, notwith-
standing my expostulations, shut me up in the monkey
house,”

“ VoyonSy mon ami^^ said Madame his wife, in her
deep slow voice, ” you are talking even greater nonsense
than usual. I do not say that you are an Apollo, in
your position it is unnecessary that you should be, but
you have dignity, you have poise, you are what any
woman would call a fine man.”

“ I will resume my story. When I made this remark
to my friend he replied : ‘ One can never tell with
women. There is something about marriage that
wonderfully attracts them. There would be no harm
in asking her. After all it is regarded as a compliment

201

by a woman to be asked in marriage. Slie can but
refuse.*

But I do not know your cousin and I do not see
how I am to make her acquaintance. I cannot go to
her house, ask to see her and when I am shown into
the drawing-room say : Foila, 1 have come to ask you
to marry me. She would think I was a lunatic and
scream for help. Besides, I am a man of an extreme
timidity, and I could never take such a step.*

“ ‘ I will tell you what to do,* said my friend. * Go
to Geneva and take her a box of chocolates from me.
She will be glad to have news of me and will receive
you with pleasure. You can have a little talk and then
if you do not like the look of her you take your leave
and no harm is done. If on the other hand you do,
w'e can go into the matter and you can make a formal
demand for her hand.’

“ I was desperate. It seemed the only thing to do.
We went to a shop at once and bought an enormous
box of chocolates and that night I took the train to
Geneva. No sooner had I arrived than I sent her a
letter to say that I was the bearer of a gift from her
cousin and much wished to give myself the pleasure
of delivering it in person. Within an hour I received
her reply to the effect that she would be pleased to
receive me at four o’clock in the afternoon. I spent
the interval before my mirror and seventeen times I
tied and retied my tie. As the clock struck four I
presented myself at the door of her house and was
immediately ushered into the drawing-room. She was
waiting for me. Her cousin said she was not ugly.
Imagine my surprise to see a young woman, er^n a

202

woman still young, of a noble presence, with the dignity
of Juno, the features of Venus, and in her expression
the intelligence of Minerva/*

You are too absurd,” said Madame. But by
now these gentlemen know that one cannot believe
all you say.”

” I swear to you that I do not exaggerate. I was
so taken aback that I nearly dropped the box of
chocolates. But I said to myself : la garde meurt mats
ne se rend pas. 1 presented the box of chocolates. I
gave her news of her cousin. I found her amiable.
We talked for a quarter of an hour. And then I said
to myself : Allans-p. I said to her ;

** * Mademoiselle, I must tell you that I did not
come here merely to give you a box of chocolates.*

“ She smiled and remarked that evidently I must
have had reasons to come to Geneva of more importance
than that.

“ * I came to ask you to do me the honour of marrying
me.* She gave a start.

“ * But, monsieur, you are mad,* she said.

“ ‘ I beseech you not to answer till you have heard
the facts,* I interrupted, and before she could say
another word I told her the whole story. I told her
about my advertisement in the Figaro and she laughed
till the tears ran down her face. Then I repeated my
offer

** * You are serious ? * she asked

“ ‘ I have never been more serious in my life.

** * I will not deny that your offer has come as a
surprise. I had not thought of marrying, I have passed
the age ; but evidently your offer is not one that a

^03

woman should refuse without consideration. I am
flattered. Will you give me a few days to reflect ? ’

“ * Mademoiselles I am absolutely desolated/ I
replied. * But I have not time. If you will not marry
me I must go back to Paris and resume my perusal of
the fifteen or eighteen hundred letters that still await
my attention.’

‘ It is quite evident that I cannot possibly give you
an answer at once. I had not set eyes on you a quarter
of an hour ago. I must consult my friends and my
family.’

“ ' What have they got to do with it ? You are of
full age. The matter is pressing. I cannot wait. I
have told you everything. You are an intelligent
woman. What can prolonged reflection add to the
impulse of the moment ? ’

** ‘ You are not asking me to say yes or no this very
minute ? That is outrageous.’

“ ‘ That is exactly what I am asking. My train goes
back to Paris in a couple of hours.’

** She looked at me reflectively.

" ‘ You are quite evidently a lunatic. You ought to
be shut up both for your own safety and that of the
public.’

“ ‘ Well, which is it to be ? ’ I said. ‘ Yes or no ? *

** She shrugged her shoulders.

“ ‘ Mon dieuJ She waited a minute and I was on
tenterhooks. * Yes.’

The Governor waved his hand towards his wife.

“ And there she is. We were married in a fortnight
and I became governor of a colony. I married a jewel,
my dear Sirs, a woman of the most charming character,

^04

otie in a thousand, a woman of a masculine intelligence
and a feminine sensibility, an admirable woman.”

“ But hold your tongue, mon ami^^ his wife said. ” You
are making me as ridiculous as yourself.”

He turned to the Belgian colonel.

” Are you a bachelor, mon colonel 9 If so I strongly
recommend you to go to Geneva. It is a nest (^ne
pepint^re was the word he used) of the most adorable
young women. You ’will find a wife there as nowhere
else. Geneva is besides a charming city. Do not
waste a minute, but go there and I will give you a
letter to my wife’s nieces.”

It was she who summed up the story.

“ The fact is that in a marriage of convenience you
expect less and so you are less likely to be disappointed.
As you do not make senseless claims on one another
there is no reason for exasperation. You do not
look for perfection and so you are tolerant to one
another's faults. Passion is all very well, but it is not
a proper foundation for marriage. Voyez-^ous, for two
people to be happy in marriage they must be able to
respect one another, they must be of the same condition
and their interests must be alike ; then if they are
decent people and are willing to give and take, to live
and let live, there is no reason why their union should
not be as happy as ours.” She paused. ” But, of
course, my husband is a very, very remarkable man.”

XXXV

IT was but a run of thirty-six hours from Bangkok
to Kep, on the Cambodian coast, to which I was
bound so that I could get to Phnom-Penh and so
to Angkor. Kep, a strip of land in front of the sea
backed by green hills, is a health station established
by the French for the ojQSicials of their government,
and there is a large bungalow filled with them and
their wives. It is in charge of a retired sea-captain
and through him I was able to get a ear to take me to
Phnom-Penh. This is the ancient capital of Cambodia,
but nothing remains of its antiquity ; it is a hybrid
town built by the French and inhabited by the Chinese ;
it has broad streets with arcades in which are Chinese
shops, formal gardens and, facing the river, a quay
neatly planted with trees like the quay in a French
riverside town. The hotel is large, dirty and preten-
tious, and there is a terrace outside it where the
merchants and the innumerable functionaries may take
an aperitif and for a moment forget that they are not
in France.

Here the enthusiastic traveller may visit a palace,
built within thirty years or so, where the descendant
of so long a line of kings keeps up a semblance of
royalty ; and he will be shown his jewels, gold head-
dresses pyramidal and tinselly, a sacred sword, a sacred
lance, and odd, old-fashioned ornaments presented to

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him by European potentates in the sixties ; he may
see a throne-room with a gorgeous gaudy throne
surmounted by a huge white nine-tiered imibrella ; he
may see a watj very spick and span and new, with a
great deal of gilt about it and a silver floor ; and
should he have a well-furnished memory and an alert
imagination he may amuse himself with sundry reflec-
tions upon the trappings of royalty, the passing of
empire, and the deplorable taste in art of crowned
heads.

But if rather than a serious traveller he is a silly
flippant person he may amuse himself with a little
story.

Once upon a time at the palace of Phnom-Penh
there was a great function for the reception of the new
French governor and his wife, and the king and all his
court were dressed in their grandest clothes. The
governor’s wife was shy and new to the country and
for something to say admired a beautiful and jewelled
belt that the monarch wore. Etiquette and oriental
politeness forced him immediately to take it off and
offer it to her ; but the belt was the only thing that
kept up his royal trousers, so he turned to the prime
minister and asked him to give him the belt, a trifle
less grand, that he himself was wearing. The prime
minister undid it and gave it to his master, but turned
to the minister of war who stood next to him and
asked him to give him his. The minister of war turned
to the grand chamberlain and made the same request,
and so it went on down the line from minister to
minister, from one official to another, till at last a small
page-boy was seen hurrying from the palace holding

up his trousers with both hands. For he, the most
insignificant of all that gathering, had found no one
to give him a belt.

But the traveller before he leaves Phnom-Penh will
be well advised to visit the museum, since here, probably
for the fibrst time in his life, he will see, among much
that is dull and commonplace, examples of a school of
sculpture that will give him a good deal to think
about. He will see at least one statue that is as
beautiful as anything that the Mayans or the archaic
Greeks ever wrought from stone. But if, like me,
he is a person of slow perceptions, it will not for some
time occur to him that here, unexpectedly, he has
come upon something that will for the rest of his life
enrich his soul. So might a man buy a plot of land to
build himself a little house and then discover that there
was a gold mine underneath it.

XXXVI

ONE thing that makes a visit to Angkor an event
of unusual significance — ^preparing you to enter
into the state of mind proper to such an
experience — ^is the immense difficulty of getting there.
For once you have reached Phnom-Penh — ^itself a place
sufficiently off the beaten track — ^you must take a
steamer and go a long way up a dull and sluggish river,
a tributary of the Mehkong, till you reach a wide
lake ; you change into another steamer, flat-bottomed,
for there is no great depth, and in this you travel aU
night ; then you pass through a narrow defile and
come to another great stretch of placid water. It is
night again when you reach the end of it. Then you
get into a sampan and are rowed among clumps of
mangroves up a tortuous channel. The moon is full
and the trees on the banks are sharply outlined against
the night and you seem to traverse not a real country
but the fantastic land of the silhouettist. At last you
come to a bedraggled little village of watermen, whose
dwellings are houseboats, and landing you drive down
by the river side through plantations of cocoanut, betel
and plantain, and the river is now a shallow little stream
(like the country stream in which on Sundays in your
childhood you used to catch minnows and put them in
a jam-pot) till at length, looming gigantic and black in
the moonshine, you see the great towers of Angkor Wat.

But now that I come to this part of my book I am
seized with dismay. I have never seen anything in

«oS

^09

the world more wonderful than the temples of Angkor,
but I do not know how on earth I am going to set
down in black and white such an account of them as
will give even the most sensitive reader more than a
confused and shadowy impression of their grandeur.
Of course to the artist in words, who takes pleasure in
the sound of them and their look on the page, it would
be an opportunity in a thousand. What a chance for
prose pompous and sensual, varied, solemn and har-
monious ; and what a delight to such a one it would
be to reproduce in his long phrases the long lines of
the buildings, in the balance of his paragraphs to
express their symmetry, and in the opulence of his
vocabulary their rich decoration ! It would be enchant-
ing to find the apt word and by putting it in its right
place give the same rhythm to the sentence as he had
seen in the massed grey stones ; and it would be a
triumph to hit upon the unusual, the revealing epithet
that translated into another beauty the colour, the form
and the strangeness of what he alone had had the gift
to see.

Alas, I have not the smallest talent for this sort of
thing, and — doubtless because I cannot do it myself —
I do not very much like it in others. A little of it goes
a long way with me. I can read a page of Ruskin with
enjoyment, but ten only with weariness ; and when I
have finished an essay by Walter Pater I know how a
trout feels when you have taken him off the hook and
he lies on the bank flapping his tail in the grass. I
admire the ingenuity with which, little piece of glass
by little piece of glass, Pater fitted together the mosaic
of his style, but it bores me. His prose is like one of

210

those period houses, all Genoese velvet and carved wood,
that they used to have in America twenty years ago,
and you looked round desperately for a corner on which
to put down your empty glass, I can bear it better
when this kind of stately writing is done by our fore-
fathers. The grand style became them. I am awed
by the magnificence of Sir Thomas Browne ; it is like
staying in a great Palladian palace with frescoes by
Veronese on the ceilings and tapestries on the walls. It
is impressive rather than homely. You cannot see your-
self doing your daily dozen in those august surroundings.

When I was young I took much trouble to acquire a
style ; I used to go to the British Museum and note
down the names of rare jewels so that I might give
my prose magnificence, and I used to go to the Zoo
and observe the way an eagle looked or linger on a
cab-rank to see how a horse champed so that I might
on occasion use a nice metaphor ; I made lists of
unusual adjectives so that I might put them in unex-
pected places. But it was not a bit of good. I found
I had no bent for anything of the kind ; we do not
write as we want to but as we can, and though I have
the greatest respect for those authors who are blessed
with a happy gift of phrase I have long resigned myself
to writing as plainly as I can. I have a very small
vocabulary and I manage to make do with it, I am
afraid, only because I see things with no great subtlety.
I think perhaps I see them with a certain passion and
it interests me to translate into words not the look
of them, but the emotion they have given me. But I
am content if I can put this down as briefly and baldly
as if I were writing a telegram.

XXXVII

ON my journey up the river and across the lake
I read the Travels in Indo-Ckina of Henri
Mouhot, a French naturalist, who was the first
European to give a detailed description of the ruins
of Angkor. His book is pleasant to read. It is a
painstaking and straightforward account very charac-
teristic of the period when the traveller had still the
ingenuous belief that people who did not dress, eat,
talk and think as he did were very odd, and not quite
human; and M. Mouhot narrated many things that
would scarcely excite the astonishment of the more
sophisticated and also more modest traveller of our day.
But apparently he was not always accurate and my
copy of his book had been at some time annotated in
pencil by a later pilgrim The corrections were neatly
written in a hand that looked determined, but whether
this not sOy this far from it, this quite wrong, this a
palpable error were due to a disinterested desire for
truth, a wish to guide future readers, or merely to a
sense of superiority, I had no means of telling. Perhaps,
however, poor Mouhot may justly claim a certain
indulgence, for, dying before he completed his journey,
he had no opportunity to correct and explain his notes.
Here are the last two entries in his diary :
l^th — ^Attacked by fever.

29^ — ^Have pity on me, oh my God . . . !

212

And here is the beginning of a letter he wrote a little
while before he died :

Louang Prahang (Laos),

2Srd July, 1861.

Nowj my dear Jenny, let ns converse together. Do
yon know of what I often think when every one around
me is asleep, and I, lying wrapped in my mosquito-
curtains, let my thoughts wander back to all the
members of my family ? Then I seem to hear again
the charming voice of my little Jenny, and to be
listening once more to “ La Traviata,’* “ The Death
of Nelson,*’ or some other of the airs that I loved
so much to hear you sing. I then feel regret, mingled
with joy, at the souvenir of the happy — oh, how happy !
— ^past. Then I open the gauze curtains, light my pipe,
and gaze out upon the stars, humming softly the
“ Pdtre ” of Beranger, or the “ Old Sergeant ”...

By the portraits of him he was a man of an open
countenance, with a full curly beard and a long
moustache, and his thinning curly hair gave him a noble
brow In a frock coat he looked a respectable rather
than a romantic figure, but in a beret with a long tassel
there was in his mien something dashing and naively
ferocious. He might then very well have passed for a
corsair in a drama of the sixties.

But it was a very difierent Angkor Wat that met the
intrepid gaze of Henri Mouhot from that which the
tourist now can so conveniently visit. If indeed you are
curious to know what this stupendous monument looked
like before the restorer set to work upon it, (it must be

21S

admitted unobtrusively) you can get a very good
impression by taking a narrow path through the forest
when you will come presently upon a huge grey gateway
covered with lichen and moss. On the upper part of it,
on the four sides, dimly emerging from ruined masonry
is, four times repeated, the impassive head of Siva. On
each side of the gateway, half hidden by jungle, are the
remains of a massive wall and in front of it, choked with
weeds and water-plants, a broad moat. Entering you
find yourself in a vast courtyard, strewn with fragments
of statues and green stones on which you vaguely
discern sculpture ; you walk softly on dead brown leaves
and they squelch ever so faintly under your tread.
Here grow enormous trees, towering above you, shrubs
of all kinds and dank weeds ; they grow among the
crumbling masonry, forcing it apart, and their roots
writhe like snakes upon the surface of the stony soil.
The courtyard is surrounded by ruined corridors and you
climb hazardously up steep, slippery and broken stairs,
threading your way through passages and vaulted
chambers dripping with wet and heavy with the stink
of bats ; the pedestals on which stood the gods are
overturned and the gods are gone. And in the corridors
and on the terraces the tropical vegetation grows
fiercely. Here and there the great pieces of carved
stone hang perilously. Here and there on a bas-
relief still miraculously in place stand the dancing-girls
veiled with lichen, mockingly, in their everlasting
gestures of abandonment.

For centuries nature has waged its battle with the
handiwork of man; it has covered, disfigured and
transformed it, and now all these buildings that a

214

multitude of slaves built with so much labour lie a
confused tangle among the trees. Here lurk the
cobras whose broken images you see on the stones
around you. Hawks fly high overhead and the gibbons
leap from branch to branch ; but it is green and dark
and you seem beneath that wanton leafage to wander at
the bottom of the sea.

It chanced that one day towards dusk, when I was
wandering about this temple, for in its ruin it offered
peculiar sensations that I found it curious to expose
myself to, I was overtaken by a storm. I had seen the
great dark clouds massed in the North-West and it had
seemed to me that never again could the temple in the
jungle be seen by me more mysteriously ; but after
a while I felt something strange in the air and looking up
saw that the dark clouds were on a sudden charging
down upon the forest. The rain came suddenly and
then the thunder, not a single peal but roll upon roll
reverberating down the sky, and lightning that blinded
me, darting and slashing fiercely. I was deafened and
confused by the noise, and the lightning startled me.
The rain fell not as in our temperate zone, but with an
angry vehemence, in sheets, storming down as though
the heavens were emptying themselves of flooded lakes.
It seemed to fall vdth no blind unconscious force, but
with a purpose and a malignancy which were, alas, but
too human . I stood in a doorway, not a little frightened,
and as the lightning tore the darkness like a veil I saw
the jungle stretching endlessly before me, and it seemed
to me that these great temples and their gods were
insignificant before the fierce might of nature. Its
power there was so manifest, spoke with so stern and

£15

insistent a voice, that it was easy to understand how man
had devised his gods and built great temples to house
them to serve as a screen between himself and the force
that terrified and crushed him. For nature is the most
powerful of all the gods.

P

XXXVIII

IN case the reader is a trifle perplexed by all this
commotion of the elements I will set down now for
his edification a few facts of general interest.
Angkor was a city of great extent, the capital of a
powerful empire, and for ten miles around the jungle is
dotted with the remains of the temples that adorned
it. Angkor Wat is but one of these and has claimed
more than the rest the attentions of the archaeologist, the
restorer and the traveller, only because when discovered
by the West it was in a less ruined state. No one
knows why the city was abandoned so suddenly that
they have found blocks of stones in the quarries ready
to take their place in an unfinished temple, and the
experts have in vain sought for a plausible explanation.

Some of the temples look as though they had been in
great part wantonly destroyed ; and the notion has been
hazarded that when the rulers after some unfortunate
battle fled the country, the wretched slaves who had
spent their lives through so many generations to erect
these massive buildings in vengeance overthrew what
they had been obliged with blood and sweat to construct.
This is conjecture. The only thing certain is that here
was a city thriving and populous and now there remains
nothing but a few ruined temples and the teeming
forest. The houses were of wood, surrounded by their
little compounds, like the houses 1 had so lately seen at

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217

Keng-Tung, and it would not have taken long for them
to decay ; the jungle, held in check for a while by the
business of man, flowed back, an irresistible green sea,
upon the scene of his futile activity. At the end of the
thirteenth century it was one of the great cities of the
East ; two hundred years later it was the resort of wild
beasts.

Angkor Wat is placed due east and west and the sun
rises directly behind the five towers that surmount it.
It is surrounded by a broad moat, which you cross by a
great causeway paved with flagstones, and the trees are
delicately reflected in the still water.

It is an impressive rather than a beautiful building and
it needs the glow of sunset or the white brilliance of the
moon to give it a loveliness that touches the heart. It is
grey veiled by a faint green, which is the colour of the
moss and the mould of all the rainy seasons it has seen,
but at sunset it is buff, pale and warm. At dawn when
the country is bathed in a silver mist the towers have an
aspect that is strangely unsubstantial ; they have then
an airy lightness which they lack in the hard white light
of noon. Twice a day, when the sun rises and when
it sets, a miracle is performed and they gain a beauty
not their own. They are the mystic towers of the
spirit’s high citadel. The temple and its dependencies
are built on a strictly formal plan. This part balances
that and one side repeats the other. The architects
exercised no great power of invention, but built on the
pattern dictated to them by the rites of their religion.
They had neither wanton fancy nor vivid imagination.
They yielded to no sudden inspiration. They were
deliberate. They gained their effects by regularity and

218

by vastness. The modern eye, of course, has been
distorted by the huge buildings that are now so easily
constructed, mammoth hotel and enormous apartment
house, so that the great size of Angkor Wat must be
realised by an effort of the imagination ; but to those for
whom it was built it must have seemed stupendous.
The very steep steps that lead from one storey to another
give it a singular effect of height. They are not the
broad and noble stairs of the West, fit for the pageantry
of processions, but an arduous and hurried means of
ascent to the presence of a secret and mysterious god.
They render the divinity remote and enigmatic. On
each storey, four to each, are large sunken basins in
which was water for purification, and the water at those
strange heights must have added strangely to the
silence and the awe. It is a religion of which the tem-
ples are empty and the god lives alone except at stated
periods when the devout bring gifts to appease him. It
is the home now of innumerable bats and the air is fetid
with them ; in each dark passage and sombre chamber
you hear their twitterings.

This plainness of construction gave the sculptors ample
occasion for decoration. Capitals, pilasters, pediments,
doorways, windows are enriched with carving of an
unimaginable variety. The themes are few, but on
them they embroidered many beautiful inventions.
Here they had a free hand and with a fury of creation
crammed into these narrow limits all the adventures of
their impetuous souls. It is interesting to note, as you
go from temple to temple, how in the course of centuries
these unknown craftsmen passed from rude strength
to consummate grace ; and how at first, regardless

219

of the whole they made their decoration an end in
itself, but at long last learnt to submit themselves to the
general plan. What they lost in power they gained in
taste ; it is for each one to say which he prefers.

The galleries are adorned with bas-reliefs ; they are
interminable ; they are world-famous ; but to attempt
to describe them would be as foolish as to attempt
to describe the jungle. Here you have princes on
elephants with the state umbrellas open over their
heads making a progress among graceful trees ; they
form a pleasing pattern which is repeated along the
length of a wall like the pattern of a paper. There
you have long lines of soldiers marching into battle, and
the gestures of their arms and the movements of then-
legs follow the same formal design as that of the
dancers in a Cambodian dance. But they join battle
and break into frenzied movement ; even the dying and
the dead are contorted into violent attitudes. Above
them the chieftains advance on their elephants and in
their chariots, brandishing swords and lances. And you
get a feeling of unbridled action, of the turmoil and
stress of battle, a breathlessness, an agitation and a
disorder, which is infinitely curious. Every inch of the
space is covered with figures, horses, elephants and
chariots, you can discern neither plan nor pattern, and
only the chariot-wheels rest the eye in this chaos. You
cannot discover a rhythm. For it was not beauty that
the artists sought, but action ; they cared little for
elegance of gesture or purity of line ; theirs was no
emotion recollected in tranquillity, but a living passion
that brooked no limits . Here is nothing of the harmony
of the Greeks, but the rush of a torrential stream and the

terrible, vehement life of the jungle. Yet there are
not a few ths^t are withal as lovely as the Elgin Marbles
and when you look at them you would be dull indeed if
you were not caught by the rapture that pure beauty
affords. But alas, this excellence was produced only
for a brief period ; for the rest the drawing for the most
part is poor and the patterns tedious. The sculptors
seem to have been content to go on from generation to
generation slavishly copying one another and you
wonder that sheer boredom did not induce them now
and again to break into a new design. The draughts-
men who make laborious drawings of them discern in the
sameness many differences, but they are only such as
you might find in a piece of prose copied by a hundred
hands. The writing is different, but the sense remains
the same. And as I wandered about looking dis-
consolately at so much that was dull I wished that I had
by my side a philosopher who could explain to me why
it is that man can never remain in one stay. Why is it,
I wanted to ask him, that having known the best he
should content himself so comfortably with the mediocre?
Is it that circumstances — or is it genius, the genius of the
individual ? — ^raise him for a while to heights at which he
cannot breathe easily so that he is content to make his
way down again to the homely plain ? Is man like
water that can be forced to an artificial altitude, but
that reverts as soon as the force is removed to its own
level ? It looks as though his normal condition were the
lowest state of civilisation compatible with his environ-
ment and in this he can remain unchanged from age to
age. Perhaps my philosopher would have told me that
only a few races are capable of raising themselves above

the dust, and then only for a little while ; and even they
are conscious that their state is extraordinary, and they
fall back with relief to the condition that is only a little
better than the beasts. But if he had, then I would
have asked him if man were not perfectible. But I
should have accepted it with humility if he had said :
come along, don*t stay there talking a lot of nonsense,
let’s go and have tiffin. I should have said to myself
that perhaps he had varicose veins and to stand so long
made his legs ache.

XXXIX

I CAME to the last day I could spend at Angkor. I
was leaving it with a wrench, but I knew by now
that it was the sort of place that, however long one
stayed, it would always be a wrench to leave. I saw
things that day that I had seen a dozen times, but never
with such poignancy ; and as I sauntered down those
long grey passages and now and then caught sight of the
forest through a doorway all I saw had a new beauty.
The still courtyards had a mystery that made me
wish to linger in them a little longer, for I had a
notion that I was on the verge of discovering some
strange and subtle secret ; it was as though a melody
trembled in the air, but so low that the ears could just
not catch it. Silence seemed to dwell in these courts
like a presence that you could see if you turned round
and my last impression of Angkor was like my first,
that of a great silence. And it gave me I know
not what strange feeling to look at the living forest
that surrounded this 'great grey pile so closely, the
jungle luxuriant and gay in the sunlight, a sea of
different greens ; and to know that there all round me
had once stood a multitudinous city.

That night a troupe of Cambodian dancers were
dancing on the terrace of the temple. We were
escorted along the causeway by boys carrying a hundred
lighted torches. The resin of which they were made

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charged the air Tvith an acrid, pleasant periume. They
formed a great circle of flame, flickering and uncertain,
on the terrace and in the middle of it the dancers trod
their strange measure. Musicians, hidden by the
darkness, played on pipes and drums and gongs, a vague
and rhyiJbmical music that troubled the nerves. My
ears awaited with a sort of tremor the resolution of
harmonies strange to me, but never attained it. The
dancers wore tight-fitting dresses of richly glowing
colours and on their heads high golden crowns. By
day no doubt they would have looked trumpery, but in
that unexpected light they had a gorgeousness and a
mystery that you find with diflSculty in the East.
Their impassive faces were dead white with powder so
that they looked like masks. No emotion, no fleeting
thought was permitted to disturb the immobility of
their expression. Their hands were beautiful, with small
and tapering fingers, and in the progress of the dance
their gestures, elaborate and complicated, pointed their
elegance and emphasised their grace. Their hands were
like rare and fantastic orchids. There was no abandon
in their dance. Their attitudes were hieratic and their
movements formal. They were like idols that had
come to life, but still were impregnated with divinity.

And those gestures, those attitudes, were the same as
of those of the bayaderes that the old sculptors had
graven on the stone walls of the temples. They had
not changed in a thousand years. Repeated endlessly
on every wall in every temple, you will see the self-same
elegant writhing of the delicate fingers, the self-same
arching of the slender body, as delights your eye in the
living dancer before you. No wonder they are grave

under their gold crowns when they bear the weight of so
long an ancestry.

The dance ended, the torches were extinguished, and
the little crowd shuffled away pell-mell into the night.
I sat on a parapet taking a last look at the five towers of
Angkor Wat,

My thoughts went back to a temple that I had visited
a day or two before. It is called Bayon. It surprised
me because it had not the uniformity of the other
temples I had seen. It consists of a multitude of towers
one above the other, symmetrically arranged, and each
tower is a four-faced, gigantic head of Siva the Destroyer,
They stand in circles one wdthin the other and the four
faces of the god are surmounted by a decorated crown.
In the middle is a great tower with face rising above face
till the apex is reached. It is all battered by time and
weather, creepers and parasitic shrubs grow all about,
so that at a first glance you see only a shapeless mass
and it is only when you look a little more closely that
these silent, heavy, impassive faces loom out at you from
the rugged stone. Then they are all round you. They
face you, they are at your side, they are behind you, and
you are watched by a thousand unseeing eyes. They
seem to look at you from the remote distance of primeval
time and all about you the jungle grows fiercely. You
cannot wonder that the peasants when they pass
should break into loud song in order to frighten away the
spirits ; for towards evening the silence is unearthly and
the effect of all those serene and yet malevolent faces is
eerie. When the night falls the faces sink away into
the stones and you have nothing but a strange, shrouded
collection of oddly shaped turrets.

But it is not on account of the temple itself that I
have described it — I have, albeit with a halting pen,
already described more than enough — it is for the sake
of the bas-reliefs that line one of its corridors. They
are not very well done, and the sculptors had but too
obviously little sense of form or line, but they have
notwithstanding an interest which at this moment called
them up \ividly to my memory. For they represent
scenes in the common life of the day in which they w'ere
done, the preparation of rice for the pot, the cooking of
food, the catching of fish and the snaring of birds, the
bu3dng and selling at the village shop, the visit to the
doctor, and in short the various activities of a simple
people. It was startling to discover how little in a
thousand years this life of theirs had changed. They
still do the same things with the same utensils. The
rice is pounded or husked in the self-same way and the
village shopkeeper on the same tray offers for sale the
same bananas and the same sugar cane. These patient
industrious folk carry tlie same burdens on the same
yokes as their ancestors carried so many generations
back. The centuries have passed leaving no trace upon
them, and some sleeper of the tenth century awakening
now in one of these Cambodian villages would find
himself at home in the artless round of daily Hfe.

Then it seemed to me that in these countries of the
East the most impressive, the most awe-inspiring
monument of antiquity is neither temple, nor citadel,
nor great wall, but man. The peasant with his im-
memorial usages belongs to an age far more ancient
than Angkor Wat, the great wall of China, or the
Pyramids of Egypt,

under their gold crowns when they bear the weight of so
long an ancestry.

The dance ended, the torches were extinguished, and
the little crowd shuffled away pell-mell into the night.
I sat on a parapet taking a last look at the five towers of
Angkor Wat.

My thoughts went back to a temple that I had visited
a day or two before. It is called Bayon. It surprised
me because it had not the uniformity of the other
temples I had seen. It consists of a multitude of towers
one above the other, symmetrically arranged, and each
tower is a four-faced, gigantic head of Siva the Destroyer.
They stand in circles one within the other and the four
faces of the god are surmotmted by a decorated crown.
In the middle is a great tower with face rising above face
till the apex is reached. It is all battered by time and
weather, creepers and parasitic shrubs grow all about,
so that at a first glance you see only a shapeless mass
and it is only when you look a little more closely that
these silent, heavy, impassive faces loom out at you from
the rugged stone. Then they are all round you. They
face you, they are at your side, they are behind you, and
you are watched by a thousand imseeing eyes. They
seem to look at you from the remote distance of primeval
time and all about you the jungle grows fiercely. You
cannot wonder that the peasants when they pass
should break into loud song in order to frighten away the
spirits ; for towards evening the silence is unearthly and
the effect of all those serene and yet malevolent faces is
eerie. When the night falls the faces sink away into
the stones and you have nothing but a strange, shrouded
collection of oddly shaped turrets.

But it is not on account of the temple that I
have described it — I have, albeit with a halting pen,
already described more than enough — it is for the sake
of the bas-reliefs that line one of its corridors. They
are not very well done, and the sculptors had but too
obviously little sense of form or line, but they have
notwithstanding an interest which at this moment called
them up vividly to my memory. For they represent
scenes in the common life of the day in which they were
done, the preparation of rice for the pot, the cooking of
food, the catching of fish and the snaring of birds, the
bu3nng and selling at the village shop, the ^isit to the
doctor, and in short the various activities of a simple
people. It was startling to discover how little in a
thousand years this fife of theirs had changed. They
still do the same things with the same utensils. The
rice is pounded or hxisked in the self-same way and the
village shopkeeper on the same tray offers for sale the
same bananas and the same sugar cane. These patient
industrious folk carry the same burdens on the same
yokes as their ancestors carried so many generations
back. The centuries have passed leaving no trace upon
them, and some sleeper of the tenth century awakening
now in one of these Cambodian villages would find
himself at home in the artless round of daily life.

Then it seemed to me that in these countries of the
East the most impressive, the most awe-inspiring
monument of antiquity is neither temple, nor citadel,
nor great wall, but man. The peasant with his im-
memorial usages belongs to an age far more ancient
than Angkor Wat, the great wall of China, or the
Pyramids of Egypt.

At the mouth of the little river I got once more
into the flat-bottomed steamer and crossed the
wide, shallow lake, changed into another boat
and went down another river. Finally I reached
Saigon.

Notwithstanding the Chinese city that has grown up
since the French occupied the country, and notwith-
standing the natives who saunter along the pavements
or, in wide straw hats like extinguishers, pull rickshaws,
Saigon has all the air of a little provincial town in the
South of France. It is laid out with broad streets,
shaded with handsome trees, and there is a bustle in
them that is quite unlike the bustle of an Eastern town
in an English colony. It is a blithe and smiling little
place. It has an opera house white and shining, built in
the flamboyant style of the Third Republic, which
faces a broad avenue ; and it has a Hotel de Ville which
is very grand, new and ornate. Outside the hotels are
terraces and at the hour of the aperitif are crowded
with bearded, gesticulating Frenchmen, drinking the
sweet and sickly beverages. Vermouth Cassis, Byrrh and
Quinquina Dubonnet which they drink in France, and
they talk nineteen to the dozen in the rolling accent of
the Midi. Gay little ladies who have something to do
with the local theatre are dressed in smart clothes and
with their pencilled eye-brows and rouged cheeks bring

226

227

a cheerful air of sophistication to this far-distant spot.
In the shops you will find Paris dresses from Marseilles
and London hats from Lille. Victorias drawn by two
little ponies gallop past and motor cars toot their horns.
The sun beats down from a cloudless sky and the shade
is heavy with the heat and solid.

Saigon is a pleasant enough place to idle in for a few
days ; life is made easy for the casual traveller ; and it
is very agreeable to sit under the awming on the terrace
of the Hotel Continental, an electric fan just above your
head, and with an innocent drink before you to read in
the local paper heated controversies upon the affairs of
the Colony and fails divers of the neighbourhood. It
is charming to be able to read steadily through the
advertisements without an uneasy feeling that you are
wasting your time and it must be a dull mind that in
such a perusal does not find here and there occasion for a
pleasant gallop on a hobby-horse through the realms of
time and space. But I only stayed long enough to
catch my boat for Hue.

Hue is the capital of Annam, and I was bound there in
order to see the festivities for the Chinese New Year
which were to be held at the Emperor’s court. But
HuS is situated on a river and the port for it is Tourane.
It was there then that the Messageries boat — a clean
white comfortable craft properly arranged for travel in
hot latitudes with plenty of space and plenty of air and
cold drinks — set me down at two one morning. She
anchored in the bay, seven or eight kilometres from the
wharf, and I got into a sampan. The crew consisted of
two women, a man and a small boy. The bay was calm
and the stars were shining thick overhead. We rowed

228

out into the night and the lights on the quay seemed
immensely far away. The boat was heavy with water
and every now and then one of the women stopped
rowing and baled it out with an empty kerosene tin.
There was the shadow of a breeze and presently they
put up a great square sail of bamboo matting, but it
was too light a wind to help us much and the journey
looked as though it would last till day-break. So far as •
I was concerned it might have lasted for ever ; I lay on
bamboo mats, smoking a pipe and now and then falling
into a light doze, and when I awoke and relit my pipe
the match showed me for a moment the brown fat faces
of the two women squatting by the mast. The man at
the tiller made a short remark and one of the women
answered him. Then again the silence was complete
but for the faint swish of the water under the boards on
which I lay. The night was so warm that with nothing
on but a shirt and a pair of khaki trousers I did not feel
cold and the air was as soft as the feel of flowers. We
made a long tack into the night and then going about
found our slow way to the mouth of the river. We
passed fishing-boats lying at anchor and others silently
creeping out into the stream. The banks of the river
were dark and mysterious. On a word from the man
the two women lowered the clumsy sail and began once
more to row. We came to the quay and the water was
so shallow that I had to be carried ashore on the back of
a coolie. It is a proceeding that has always seemed to
me both terrifying and undignified and I clung to the
coolie's neck in a manner that I weU knew ill became
me. The hotel was just across the road and coolies
shouldered my luggage. But it was barely five and still

S29

very dark and no one was awake in the hotel. The
coolies hammered on the door and at last a sleepy
servant opened it. The rest of them were lying about
fast asleep on the billiard table and on the floor. I
asked for a room and coffee. The fresh bread was just
ready and my cafe au lait with rolls hot from the oven,
very welcome after that long journey across the bay,
made a meal such as I have not often had the good luck
to eat. I was shown a dirty, sordid little room, with a
mosquito net grimy and tom, and I do not know how'
many commercial travellers and officials of the French
government had passed through the sheets on the bed
since last they were washed. I did not care. It
seemed to me that I had never arrived anywhere in
such romantic style and I could not but think that this
must be the preface to an experience that w'ould be
memorable.

But there are places of which the only point is the
arrival ; they promise the most fantastic adventures of
the spirit and give you no more than three meals a
day and last year’s films. They are like a face, full of
character that intrigues and excites you, but that on
closer acquaintance you discover is merely the mask of a
vulgar soul. Such is Tourane.

I spent one morning there in order to visit the museum
in which there is a collection of Khmer sculpture. The
reader may possibly remember that when I wrote of
Phnom-Penh I became strangely eloquent (for a person
who does not much like others to gush and is shy of
superlatives) about a statue to be seen there. This was
a Khmer work and now I may remind him (or tell him if
like me till I went to Indo-Cbina he never knew that

230

Khmers or their sculpture existed) that this was a
mighty nation, the offspring of the aboriginal tribes of
Indo-China and an invading race from the plateaux of
Central Asia, who founded a far-flung and powerful
empire. Immigrants from Eastern India brought them
the Sanskrit language, Brahmanism and the culture of
their native land ; but the Khmers were vigorous
people and they had a creative instinct that enabled
them to make their own use of the knowledge the
strangers brought them. They built magnificent
temples and adorned them with sculptures, founded it
is true on the art of India, but which have at their best
an energy, a boldness of execution, a fertility and a
brilliant fancy to be found nowhere else in the East.
The statue of Harihara* at Phnom-Penh testifies
to the greatness of their genius. It is a miracle of
grace. It calls to mind the archaic statuary of Greece and
the Mayan sculpture of Mexico ; but it has a character
all its own. Those early Greek works have the dewy
freshness of the morning, but their beauty is a trifle
vacant ; the Mayan statues have something primeval in
them, they excite awe rather than admiration, for they
have in them still the touch of early man who drew in the
dark recesses of his caverns magic pictures to cast a
spell on the beasts he feared or hunted; but in the

* I am somewhat puzzled by the name given by the French
authorities to the deity represented in this statue. I always
thought that Hari and Kara were the names under which were
commonly known Siva and Vishnu, and to call a god Harihara
looks very much like calling a single respectable person Crosse-
andblackwell. But since I suppose the experts know better than
I, I have referred to this statue throughout by the name they
give it.

231

Harihara you have a singular and enigmatic union of the
archaic and the sophisticated. It has the candour of the
primitive quickened by the complexity of the civilised.
The Khmer brought a long inheritance of thought to the
craft which had so suddenly captivated his fancy. It is
as though to the England of the Elizabethan age had
come, a bolt from the blue, the art of painting in oil ;
and the artists, their souls charged with the plays of
Shakespeare, the conflict of religions at the Reformation,
and the Armada, had begun to paint with the hand of
Cimabue. Something like this must have been the
state of mind of the sculptor who made the statue in
Phnom-Penh. It has power and simplicity and an
exquisite line, but it has also a spiritual quality that is
infinitely moving. It has not only beauty, but
intelligence.

These great works of the Khmers gain a peculiar
poignancy when you reflect that a few ruined temples
strewn about the jungle and a few mutilated statues
scattered here and there in museums are all that re-
mains of this mighty empire and this restless people.
Their power was broken, they were dispersed, becoming
drawers of water and hewers of wood, they died out ;
and now, the rest of them assimilated by their con-
querors, their name endures only in the art they so
lavishly produced.

Q

XLI

Hue is a pleasant little town with something of
the leisurely air of a cathedral city in the West
of England and though the capital of an empire
it is not imposing. It is built on both sides of a wide
river, crossed by a bridge, and the hotel is one of the
worst in the world. It is extremely dirty and the food
is dreadful ; but it is also a general store in which
everything is provided that the colonist may want from
camp-equipment and guns, women’s hats and men’s
reach-me-downs to sardines, pdte de foie gras and
Worcester sauce ; so that the hungry traveller can make
up with tinned goods for the inadequacy of the bill of
fare. Here the inhabitants of the town come to drink
their coffee andj^we in the evening and the soldiers of the
garrison to play billiards. The French have built
themselves solid, rather showy houses without much
regard for the climate or the environment ; they look
like the villas of retired grocers in the suburbs of Paris.

The French carry France to their Colonies just as the
English carry England to theirs; and the English,
reproached for their insularity, can justly reply that in
this matter they are no more singular than their neigh-
bours. But not even the most superficial observer can
fail to notice that there is a great difference in the
manner in which these two nations behave towards the
natives of the countries of which they have gained

232

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possession. The Frenchman has deep down in him a
persuasion that all men are equal and that mankind is a
brotherhood. He is slightly ashamed of it and in case
you should laugh at him makes haste to laugh at
himself ; but there it is, he cannot help it ; he cannot
prevent himself from feeling that the native, black,
brown or yellow, is of the same clay as himself, with the
same loves, hates, pleasures and pains, and he cannot
bring himself to treat him as though he belonged to a
different species. Though he will brook no encroach-
ment on his authority and deals firmly with any attempt
the native may make to lighten his yoke, in the ordinary
affairs of life he is friendly with him without condescen-
sion and benevolent without superiority. He inculcates
in him his peculiar prejudices ; Paris is the centre
of the world, and the ambition of every yoimg Anna-
mite is to see it at least once in his life ; you will
hardly meet one who is not convinced that outside France
there is neither art, literature nor science. But the
Frenchman will sit with the Annamite, eat with him,
drink with him and play with him. In the market-
place you will see the thrifty Frenchwoman with her
basket on her arm jostling the Annamite housekeeper
and bargaining just as fiercely. No one likes having
another take possession of his house, even though he
conducts it more efficiently and keeps it in better repair
than ever he could himself; he does not want to live in
the attics even though his master has installed a lift for
him to reach them ; and I do not suppose the Annamites
like it any more than the Burmese that strangers hold
their country. But I should say that whereas the
Burmese only respect the English, the Annamites

234

admire the French. When in course of time these
peoples inevitably regain their freedom it will be curious
to see which of these emotions has borne the better
fruit.

The Annamites are a pleasant people to look at, very
small, with yellow flat faces and bright dark eyes, and
they look very spruce in their clothes. The poor wear
brown of the colour of rich earth, a long tunic slit up the
sides and trousers, with a girdle of apple green or orange
round their waists ; and on their heads a large flat
straw hat or a small black turban with very regular
folds. The well-to-do wear the same neat turban, with
white trousers, a black silk tunic and over this sometimes
a black lace coat. It is a costume of great elegance.

But though in all these lands the clothes the people
wear attract our eyes because they are peculiar, in each
everyone is dressed very much alike ; it is a uniform
they wear, picturesque often and always suitable to the
climate, but it allows little opportunity for individual
taste ; and I could not but think it must amaze the
native of an Eastern country visiting Europe to observe
the bevdldering and vivid variety of costume that
surrounds him. An oriental crowd is like a bed of
daffodils at a market gardener 's,brilliant but monotonous;
but an English crowd, for instance that which you see
through a faint veil of smoke when you look down from
above on the floor of a Promenade Concert, is like a
nosegay of every kind of flower. Nowhere in the East
will you see costumes so gay and multifarious as on a
fine day in Piccadilly. The diversity is prodigious.
Soldiers, sailors, policemen, postmen, messenger boys ;
men in tail coats and top hats, in lounge suits and bowlers

men in plus fours and caps, women in silk and cloth and
velvet, in all the colours, and in hats of this shape and
that. And besides this there are the clothes worn on
diflTerent occasions and to pursue different sports, the
clothes servants wear, and workmen, jockeys, huntsmen,
and courtiers. I fancy the Annamite will return to
Hue and think his fellow-countrymen dress very dully.

ANNAM was for long centuries under the suze-
rainty of China and its Emperor sent tribute to
the Son of Heaven. Its civilisation was Chinese
and its temples were erected in honour of Confucius
rather than of Gautama. The palace, surrounded by a
moat and a wall, covers a vast extent. It is Chinese, but
in a shoddy and second-hand way ; it is tired and a trifle
depressing. You pass down a trim road planted with
little trees and on each side of this are gardens and
pavilions. But in the gardens the grass grows ragged
and rank ; there are untidy bushes that look like ill-
cared for children, and stunted trees. They are so
deserted that you find it hard to believe that somewhere
in the background, unseen by you, dwells surrounded by
his women and eunuchs and mandarins an emperor
ruling shadowy under the power of France. You feel
that it is a pretence that he can hardly be at pains to
keep up. You pass through throne rooms gaudily
painted and decorated with gold, long dimly lit halls in
which are the ancestral tablets of the Emperor, and
apartments in which are displayed the gifts that from
time to time have been presented to him, French
clocks and Sfevres porcelain, Chinese pottery and
ornaments of jade ; but just as at the marriage of your
friends you give them a more costly present if they are
rich and do not need it than if they are poor and do, so

236

2S7

here the donors have measured their generosity with
acumen.

But the ceremonies of the Tet were conducted with
pomp. This is the celebration of the Chinese New Year
when the Emperor, in imitation again of the Son of
Heaven, receives the homage of his mandarins. I had
received an in\dtation and at seven in the morning,
feeling embarrassed in a dinner jacket and a stiff shirt,
I found at the Palace gate a group of French civilians
similarly dressed and a number of officers in uniform.
The Resident Superieur drove up and we followed him
into the courtyard. In the large open space soldiers in
bright and fantastic uniforms were lined up and in front
of them two lines of mandarins according to their rank,
the civil on the right and the military on the left. A
little below were the eunuchs and the imperial orchestras
and on each side was a royal elephant in state caparison
with a man holding a state umbrella over the howdah.
The mandarins were dressed in the Manchu fashion in
high boots with thick white soles, silk robes splendidly
embroidered, with voluminous sleeves, and black hats
decorated with gold. Bugles blew and we, the Euro-
peans, crowded into the throne room. It was rather dark.
The Emperor sat on the dais. In his gold robes he sank
into the gold of the throne and the gold backcloth of the
canoj^ over it so that at first you were hardly conscious
that a living person was there. He stood up. At
each comer of the dais stood a man in blue holding a
state fan and behind the throne a row of servants in
darker blue bore the royal utensils, the betel nut tray,
the spittoon and I know not what. A little in front two
soldiers magnificently dressed in orange held before them

2S8

upright golden swords ; they stood like images and
looked neither to the right nor to the left. The Emperor
too looked like an image as he stood motionless with no
expression on his sallow long thin face.

The Resident Sup^rieur read an address and the
Emperor read his reply. He read in a high-pitched
voice in a sort of sing-song that made it sound like
a litany. The Europeans retired to the side of the
hall and the Emperor sat down. In front of the throne
was a low altar and on this the Emperor’s uncle, a little
old man with a sparse grey beard, now placed what
looked like two books wrapped in red silk. Then the
two brothers of the Emperor took up their positions in
front of the altar, not facing the Emperor but each other,
and at the same moment the mandarins in the court-
yard, who had been standing quite still during the read-
ing of the speeches, came forward on to bamboo mats
that had been set for them, but in order accord-
ing to their rank and class. They also faced not the
Emperor but each other. A band began to play and
singers burst into song. This was the signal for the
two princes of the blood and for the mandarins in
the courtyard to turn and face the Emperor. The
chorus was silent and the princes and the mandarins
knelt down and touched the ground with their fore-
heads. They moved as one. A huge gong sounded
from the tower over the palace gateway and the chorus
again began to sing. Then with one impressive move-
ment like well-drilled soldiers the mandarins prostrated
themselves. This was repeated five times. The
emperor sat impassive and made no acknowledge-
ment of the obeisances. He might have been a

2S9

golden idol. The throne-room, which had looked so
tawdry the day before, now, set off by the gorgeous
clothes and smart uniforms, had if not magnificence
at least a barbaric splendour. Then all the man-
darins bowed three times and unceremoniously
shuffled out of their ranks, the princes of the blood
smiled, shook hands with their French fnends and
complained of the heat of their robes, the Emperor,
without much dignity, stepped off his throne. He
walked quickly into a sort of ante-chamber and the
officials of the court and the foreigners followed him.
Here in two rows stood soldiers holding the royal
umbrellas and various staffs, and a band of page boys in
green played drums and fifes and with vigour struck
gongs. Sweet champagne was handed round with
biscuits and sweetmeats and cigars. In a little while
the Emperor was borne away on his palanquin, a low
round gilt chair, by twelve men in red. The ceremony
was over.

In the evening I went to a party at the palace. The
Emperor and the Resident Sup^rieur sat on large gilt
armchairs in the central doorway of the throne-room
and the guests were gathered round about. The
courtyard was lit with innumerable little oil lamps and a
native orchestra played lustily. Three fantastic figures,
like those of the Chinese drama, in splendid Chinese
dresses came upon the scene and trod a grotesque
measure. Then the Imperial ballet, a large number of
boys and youths in beautiful old-fashioned costumes
that reminded one of the eighteenth century pictures
of the Far East, danced and sang. They had lanterns
on their shoulders, with lighted candles in them, and

240

they moved about in complicated patterns that formed
Chinese characters wishing the Emperor good luck and
prosperity. It was more like a drill than a dance, but
the effect was strange and pretty. They gave place to
other dancers, men dressed up as huge cocks, emitting
fire from their beaks, or as buffaloes and fearful dragons
and they cut fantastic capers ; then came fireworks and
the courtyard was filled with smoke and the noisiness
of crackers.

This ended the native part of the entertainment and
the foreigners gathered round the buffet. The court
pages, on European instruments, began to play a one-
step. The foreigners danced.

The Emperor wore a tunic of yellow silk richly
embroidered and on his head a yellow turban. He was a
man of thirty-five, rather taller than most of the Anna-
mites, and very thin. His face was strangely smooth.
He looked very frail but incredibly distinguished. My
last impression of the party was of him leaning in a
careless attitude against a table, smoking a cigarette
and chatting with a young Frenchman. Every now and
then his eyes rested for a moment incuriously on the
conquerors clumsily dancing.

It was late now and I was setting out at dawn by car
for Hanoi. It seemed hardly worth while to go to bed
and as I drove in my rickshaw to the hotel I asked
myself why I should not spend the rest of the night on
the river. It would do if I got back in time to change,
bathe myself and have a cup of coffee before starting.
I explained to my rickshaw boy what I wanted and he
took me down to the river. There was a landing-stage
just below the bridge and here we found half a dozen

241

sampans moored to the side. Their owners were
sleeping in them, but at least one of them was sleeping
lightly, for he awoke as he heard me walk down the
stone steps and put his head out of the blanket in which
he was wrapped. The rickshaw boy spoke to him
and he got up. He called to a woman asleep in
the boat. I stepped in. The woman untied and we
slipped out into the stream. These boats have a low
round awning of bamboo matting, just high enough to
sit upright under, and bamboo matting on the boards.
You can shut them up with shutters, but I told the man
to leave the front open so that I could look at the night.
In the heights of heaven the stars shone very bright as
though up there too there were a party. The man
brought me a pot of Chinese tea and a cup. I poured
some out and lit my pipe. We went along very slowly
and the sound of the paddle in the water was the only
sound that broke the silence. It was delightful to
think that I had all those hours before me to enjoy that
sense of well-being and I thought to myself how when I
was once more in Europe, imprisoned in stony cities, I
would remember that perfect night and the enchanting
solitude. It would be the most imperishable of my
memories. It was a unique occasion and I said to
myself that I must hoard the moments as they passed.
I could not afford to waste one of them. I was laying up
treasure for myself. And I thought of all the things I
would to reflect upon, and of the melancholy that
I would subtly savour as you savour the first scented
strawberries of the year; and I would think of love, and
invent stories and meditate upon beautiful things like
art and death. The paddle hit the water very gently

and I could just feel the boat glide on. I made up my
mind to watch and cherish every exquisite sensation
that came to me.

Suddenly I felt a bump. What was it ? I looked
out and it was broad day. The bump was the bump of
the boat against the landing-stage, and there was the
bridge just above me.

Good God,'^ I cried, '' I've been asleep."

I had slept right through the night and there was my
cup of tea cold by my side. My pipe had fallen out of
my mouth. I had lost all those priceless moments and
had slept solidly through the hours. I was furious. I
might never have the opportunity again to spend a night
in a sampan on an Eastern river and now I should never
have those wonderful thoughts and matchless emotions
that I had promised myself. I paid for the boat and
still in evening clothes ran up the steps and went to the
hotel. My hired car was waiting for me at the door.

XLIII

Here I had the intention of finishing this book,
for at Hanoi I found nothing much to interest
me. It is the capital of Tonkin and the French
tell you it is the most attractive town in the East, but
when you ask them why, answer that it is exactly like a
town, Montpellier or Grenoble, in France. And Hai-
phong to which I went in order to get a boat to Hong-
Kong is a commercial town and dull. It is true that
from it you can visit the Bay of Along, which is one of the
sehensrvilrdigkeiien of Indo-China, but I was tired of
sights. I contented myself with sitting in the cafe, for
here it was none too warm and I was glad to get out of
tropical clothes, and reading back numbers of UIUus-
iratxon^ or for the sake of exercise taking a brisk walk
along straight, wide streets- Haiphong is traversed by
canals and sometimes I got a glimpse of a scene
which in its varied life, with all the native craft on
the water, was multicoloured and charming. There
was one canal, with tall Chinese houses on each side of it,
that had a pleasant curve. The houses were white-
washed, but the whitewash was discoloured and stained ;
with their grey roofs they made an agreeable composi-
tion against the pale sky. The picture had the faded
elegance of an old water-colour. There was nowhere an
emphatic note. It was soft and a little weary and
inspired one with a faint melancholy. I was reminded,

243

24#4

I scarcely know why, of an old maid I knew in my
youth, a relic of the Victorian age, who wore black
silk mittens and made crochet shawls for the poor, black
for widows and white for married women. She had
suffered in her youth, but whether from ill-heath or
unrequited love, no one exactly knew.

But there was a local paper at Haiphong, a small
dingy sheet with stubby type the ink of which came ojBT
on your fingers, and it gave you a political article, the
wireless news, advertisements and local intelligence.
The editor doubtless hard pressed for matter, printed
the names of the persons, Europeans, natives of the
country and Chinese, who had arrived at Haiphong
or left it, and mine was put in with the rest. On the
morning of the day before that on which my boat was
to sail for Hong-Kong I was sitting in the caf6 of the
hotel drinking a Dubonnet before luncheon when the
boy came in and said that a gentleman wished to see me.
I did not know a soul in Haiphong and asked who it was.
The boy said he was an Englishman and lived there, but
he could not tell me his name. The boy spoke very
little French and it was hard for me to understand what
he said. I was mystified, but told him to show the
visitor in. A moment later he came back followed
by a white man and pointed me out to him. The man
gave me a look and walked towards me. He was a
very tall fellow, well over six feet high, rather fat and
bloated, with a red, clean-shaven face and extremely
pale blue eyes. He wore very shabby khaki, shorts and
a stingah-shifter unbuttoned at the neck, and a battered
helmet. I concluded at once that he was a stranded
beachcomber who was going to touch me for a loan and

24^

trondered how little I could hope to get off for.

He came up to me and held out a large red hand with
broken, dirty nails.

I don't suppose you remember me,” he said. ** My
name's Grosely. I was at St. Thomas's Hospital with
you. I recognised your name as soon as I saw it in the
paper and I thought I’d look you up.”

I had not the smallest recollection of him, but I asked
him to sit down and offered him a drink. By his
appearance I had first thought he would ask me for ten
piastres and I might have given him five, but now it
looked more likely that he would ask for a hundred and
I should have to think myself lucky if I could content
him with fifty. The habitual borrower always asks
twice what he expects to get and it only dissatisfies him
to give him what he has asked since then he is vexed
with himself for not having asked more. He feels you
have cheated him.

“ Are you a doctor ? ” I asked.

‘‘ No, I was only at the bloody place a year.”

He took off his sun-helmet and showed me a mop of
grey hair, which much needed a brush. His face was
curiously mottled and he did not look healthy. His
teeth were badly decayed and at the comers of his
mouth were empty spaces. When the boy came to
take the orders he asked for brandy.

“ Bring the bottle,” he said. “ La bouteilk. Savvy ?”
He turned to me. ” I’ve been living here for the last
five years, but I can’t get along with French somehow.
I talk Tonkinese.” He leaned his chair back and looked
at me. ” I remember you, you know. You used to go
about with those twins. What was their name ? I

246

expect IVe changed more than you have. IVe spent
the best part of my life in China. Rotten climate, you
know. It plays hell with a man/*

I still had not the smallest recollection of him. I
thought it best to say so.

** Were you the same year as I was ? *’ I asked.

“Yes. *92.**

“ It’s a devil of a long time ago,”

About sixty boys and young men entered the hospital
every year ; they were most of them shy and confused
by the new life they were entering upon ; many had
never been in London before ; and to me at least they
were shadows that passed without any particular rhyme
or reason across a white sheet. During the first year a
certain number for one reason or another dropped out,
and in the second year those that remained gained by
degrees the beginnings of a personality. They were
not only themselves, but the lectures one had attended
with them, the scone and coffee one had eaten at the
same table for luncheon, the dissection one had done at
the same board in the same dissecting room, and The
Belle of New York one had seen together from the pit of
the Shaftesbury Theatre.

The boy brought the bottle of brandy and Grosely,
if that was really his name, pouring himself out a
generous helping drank it down at a gulp without water
or soda.

“ I couldn’t stand doctoring,” he said, “ I chucked it.
My people got fed up with me and I went out to China.
They gave me a hundred pounds and told me to shift for
myself. I was damned glad to get out, I can tell you.
I guess I was just about as much fed up with them as

247

they were with me. I haven't troubled them much
since/'

Then from somewhere in the depths of my memory a
faint hint crept into the rim, as it were, of consciousness,
as on a rising tide the water slides up the sand and then
withdraws to advance with the next wave in a
fuller volume. I had first an inkling of some shabby
little scandal that had got into the papers. Then I saw
a boy's face, and so gradually the facts recurred to me ;
I remembered him now. I didn't believe he was called
Grosely then, I think he had a one syllabled name, but
that I was uncertain of. He was a very tall lad, (I
began to see him quite well) thin, with a slight stoop, he
was only eighteen and had grown too fast for his strength,
he had curly, shining browm hair, rather large features
(they did not look so large now, perhaps because his
face was fat and puffy) and a peculiarly fresh complexion,
very pink and white, like a girl’s. I imagine people,
women especially, would have thought him a very
handsome boy, but to us he was only a clumsy, shuffling
lout. Then I remembered that he did not often come to
lectures, no, it wasn't that I remembered, there were too
many students in the theatre to recollect who was there
and who wasn't. I remembered the dissecting room.
He had a leg at the next table to the one I was working
at and he hardly ever touched it ; I forget why the men
who had other parts of the body complained of his
neglecting the work, I suppose somehow it interfered
with them. In those days a good deal of gossip went on
over the dissection of a part ” and out of the distance
of thirty years some of it came back to me. Someone
started the story that Grosely was a very gay dog. He

K

248

drank like a fish and was an awful womaniser. Most of
those boys were very simple, and they had brought to
the hospital the notions they had acquired at home and
at school. Some were prudish and they were shocked;
others, those who worked hard, sneered at him and
asked how he could hope to pass his exams ; but a good
many were excited and impressed, he was doing what
they would have liked to do if they had had the courage.
Grosely had his admirers and you could often see him
surrounded by a little band listening open-mouthed to
stories of his adventures. Recollections now were
crowding upon me. In a very little while he lost his
shyness and assumed the airs of a man of the world.
They must have looked absurd on this smooth-cheeked
boy with his pink and white skin. Men (so they called
themselves) used to tell one another of his escapades.
He became quite a hero. He would make caustic
remarks as he passed the museum and saw a pair of
earnest students going over their anatomy together.
He was at home in the public-houses of the neighbour-
hood and was on familiar terms with the barmaids.
Looking back, I imagine that, newly arrived from the
country and the tutelage of parents and schoolmasters,
he was captivated by his freedom and the thrill of
London. His dissipations were harmless enough. They
were due only to the urge of youth. He lost his
head.

But we were all very poor and we did not know how
Grosely managed to pay for his garish amusements.
We knew his father was a country doctor and I think we
knew exactly how much he gave his son a month. It
was not enough to pay for the harlots he picked up on the

249

promenade at the Pavilion and for the drinks he stood
his friends in the Criterion Bar. We told one another in
awe-struck tones that he must be getting fearfully into
debt. Of course he could pawn things, but we knew by
experience that you could not get more than three
pounds for a microscope and thirty shillings for a
skeleton. We said he must be spending at least ten
pounds a week. Our ideas were not very grand and
this seemed to us the wildest pitch of extravagance. At
last one of his friends disclosed the mystery : Grosely
had discovered a wonderful system for making money.
It amused and impressed us. None of us would have
thought of anything so ingenious or have had the nerve
to attempt it if he had. Grosely went to auctions, not
Christie’s, of course, but auctions in the Strand and
Oxford Street, and in private houses, and bought
anything portable that was going cheap. Then he took
his purchase to a pawnbroker’s and pawned it for ten
shillings or a pound more than he had paid. He was
making money, four or five pounds a week, and
he said he was going to give up medicine and
make a regular business of it. Not one of us had ever
made a penny in his life and we regarded Grosely with
admiration.

“ By Jove, he’s clever,” we said.

“ He's just about as sharp as they make them.”

“ That’s the sort that ends up as a millionaire.”

We were all very worldly-wise and what we didn’t
know about life at eighteen we were pretty sure
wasn’t worth knowing. It was a pity that when an
examiner asked us a question we were so nervous
that the answer often flew straight out of our head and

250

when a nurse asked us to post a letter we blushed
scarlet. It became known that the Dean had sent for
Grosely and hauled him over the coals. He had
threatened him with sundry penalties if he continued
systematically to neglect his work. Grosely was
indignant. He*d had enough of that sort of thing at
school, he said, he wasn’t going to let a horse-faced
eunuch treat him like a boy. Damn it all, he was
getting on for nineteen and there wasn’t much you could
teach him. The Dean had said he heard he was
drinking more than was good for him. Damned cheek.
He could carry his liquor as well as any man of his age,
he’d been blind last Saturday and he meant to get blind
next Saturday, and if anyone didn’t like it he could do
the other thing. Grosely ’s friends quite agreed with
him that a man couldn’t let himself be insulted like
that.

But the blow fell at last and now I remembered quite
well the shock it gave us all. I suppose we had not seen
Grosely for two or three days, but he had been in the
habit of coming to the hospital more and more irregu-
larly, so if we thought anything about it, I imagine we
merely said that he was off on one of his bats . He would
turn up again in a day or so, rather pale, but with a
wonderful story of some girl he had picked up and the
time he had had with her. The anatomy lecture was at
nine in the morning and it was a rush to get there in
time. On this particular day little attention was paid
to the lecturer who, with a visible pleasure in his limpid
English and admirable elocution, was describing I know
not what part of the human skeleton, for there was much
excited whispering along the benches and a newspaper

251

was surreptitiously passed from hand to hand. Suddenly
the lecturer stopped. He had a pedagogic sarcasm.
He affected not to know the names of his students.

“ I am afraid I am disturbing the gentleman who is
reading the paper. Anatomy is a very tedious science
and I regret that the regulations of the Royal College of
Surgeons oblige me to ask you to give it enough of your
attention to pass an examination in it. Any gentleman,
however, who finds this impossible is at liberty to
continue his perusal of the paper outside.*'

The wretched boy to whom this reproof was addressed
reddened to the roots of his hair and in his embarrass-
ment tried to stuff the newspaper in his pocket. The
professor of anatomy observed him coldly.

“ I am afraid, sir, that the paper is a little too large to
go into your pocket,” he remarked. “ Perhaps you
would be good enough to hand it down to me ? ”

The newspaper was passed from row to row to the
well of the theatre, and, not content with the confusion
to which he had put the poor lad, the eminent surgeon,
taking it, asked ;

‘‘ May I enquire what it is in the paper that the
gentleman in question found of such absorbing
interest ? ”

The student who gave it to him without a word
pointed out the paragraph that we had all been reading.
The professor read it and we watched him in silence.
He put the paper down and went on with his lecture.
The headline ran Arrest of a Medical Student. Grosely
had been brought before the police-court magistrate for
getting goods on credit and pawning them. It appears
that this is an indictable offence and the magistrate

252

had remanded him for a week. Bail was refused. It
looked as though his method of making money by buying
things at auctions and pawning them had not in the long
run proved as steady a source of income as he expected
and he had found it more profitable to pawn things that
he was not at the expense of paying for. We talked
the matter over excitedly as soon as the lecture was over
and I am bound to say that, having no property our-
selves, so deficient was our sense of its sanctity we could
none of us look upon his crime as a very serious one ;
but with the natural love of the young for the terrible
there were few who did not think he would get anything
from two years hard labour to seven years penal
servitude.

I do not know why, but I did not seem to have any
recollection of what happened to Grosely. I think he
may have been arrested towards the end of a session
and his case may have come on again when we had all
separated for holidays. I did not know if it was dis-
posed of by the police-court magistrate or whether it
went up for trial. I had a sort of feeling that he was
sentenced to a shoit term of imprisonment, six weeks
perhaps, for his operations had been pretty extensive ;
but I knew that he had vanished from our midst and in a
little while was thought of no more. It was strange to
me that after all these years I should recollect so much
of the incident so clearly. It was as though, turning
over an album of old snapshots, I saw all at once the
photographs of a scene I had quite forgotten.

But of course in that gross elderly man with grey hair
and mottled red face I should never have recognised the
lanky pink-cheeked boy. He looked sixty, but I knew

253

he must be much less than that. I wondered what he
had done with himself in the intervening time. It did
not look as though he had excessively prospered.

“ What were you doing in China ? " I asked him.

“ I was a tide-waiter.*’

Oh, were you ? ”

It is not a position of great importance and I took care
to keep out of my tone any note of surprise. The tide-
waiters are employees of the Chinese customs whose
duty it is to board the ships and junks at the various
treaty ports and I think their chief business is to prevent
opium-smuggling. They are mostly retired A.B.S
from the Royal Navy and non-commissioned officers
who have finished their time. I have seen them come
on board at various places up the Yangtse. They
hobnob with the pilot and the engineer, but the skipper
is a trifle curt with them. They learn to speak Chinese
more fluently than most Europeans and often marry
Chinese women.

“ When I left England I swore I wouldn’t go back till
I’d made my pile. And I never did. They were glad
enough to get anyone to be a tide-waiter in those days,
any white man I mean, and they didn’t ask questions.
They didn’t care who you were. I was damned glad to
get the job, I can tell you, I was about broke to the
wide when they took me on. I only took it till I could
get something better, but I stayed on, it suited me, I
wanted to make money and I found out that a tide-
waiter could make a packet if he knew the right way to
go about. I was with the Chinese customs for the best
part of twenty-five years and when I came away I
wouldn’t mind betting that lots of commissioners would

254

have been glad to have the money I had.”

He gave me a sly, mean look. I had an inkling of
what he meant. But there was a point on which
I was willing to be reassured ; if he was going to ask
me for a hundred piastres (I was resigned to that
sum now) I thought I might just as well take the blow
at once.

“ I hope you kept it,” I said.

” You bet I did. I invested all my money in Shanghai
and when I left China I put it all in American railway
bonds. Safety first is my motto. I know too much
about crooks to take any risks myself.”

I liked that remark, so I asked him if he wouldn’t stay
and have luncheon with me.

” No, I don’t think I will. I don’t eat much tiffin and
anyway my chow’s waiting for me at home. I think
I’ll be getting along.” He got up and he towered over
me. ” But look here, why don’t you come along this
evening and see my place ? I’ve married a Haiphong
girl. Got a baby too. It’s not often I get a chance of
talking to anyone about London. You’d better not
come to dinner. We only eat native food and I don’t
suppose you’d care for that. Come along about nine,
will you ? ”

” All right,” I said.

I had already told him that I was leaving Haiphong
next day. He asked the boy to bring him a piece of
paper so that he might write down his address. He
wrote laboriously in the hand of a boy of four-
teen.

Tell the porter to explain to your rickshaw boy
where it is. I’m on the second floor. There’s no bell.

255

Just knock. Well, see you later/'

He walked out and I went in to luncheon.

After dinner I called a rickshaw and with the porter's
help made the boy understand where I wanted to go. I
found presently that he was taking me along the curved
canal the houses of which had looked to me so like a
faded Victorian water-colour ; he stopped at one of
them and pointed to the door. It looked so shabby and
the neighbourhood w^as so squalid that I hesitated^
thinking he had made a mistake. It seemed xmlikely
that Grosely could live so far in the native quarter and
in a house so bedraggled. I told the rickshaw boy to
wait and pushing open the door saw a dark staircase in
front of me. There was no one about and the street
was empty. It might have been the small hours of the
morning. I struck a match and fumbled my way
upstairs ; on the second floor I struck another match
and saw a large brown door in front of me. I knocked
and in a moment it was opened by a little Tonkinese
woman holding a candle. She was dressed in the
earth-brown of the poorer classes, with a tight little
black turban on her head ; her lips and the skin round
them were stained red with betel and when she opened
her mouth to speak I saw that she had the black teeth
and black gums that so disfigure these people. She
said something in her native language and then I heard
Grosely 's voice :

“ Come along in. I was beginning to think you
weren’t going to turn up.”

I passed through a little dark ante-chamber and
entered a large room that evidently looked on the canal.
Grosely was lying on a long chair and he raised his

256

length from it as I came in. He was reading the
Hong-Kong papers by the Hght of a paraffin lamp that
stood on a table by his side.

“ Sit down,” he said, ** and put your feet up.”

“ There’s no reason I should take your chair.”

” Go on. I’ll sit on this.”

He took a kitchen chair and sitting on it put his feet
on the end of mine.

** That’s my wife,” he said pointing with his thumb at
the Tonkinese woman who had followed me into the
room. “ And over there in the corner’s the kid.”

I followed his eyes and against the wall, lying on
bamboo mats and covered with a blanket, I saw a child
sleeping.

Lively little beggar when he’s awake. I wish you
could have seen him. She’s going to have another
soon.”

I glanced at her and the truth of what he said was
apparent. She was very small, with tiny hands and
feet, but her face was flat and the skin muddy. She
looked sullen, but may only have been shy. She went
out of the room and presently came back with a bottle
of whisky, two glasses and a syphon. I looked round.
There was a partition at the back of dark unpainted
wood, which I suppose shut off another room, and pinned
against the middle of this was a portrait cut out of an
illustrated paper of John Galsworthy. He looked
austere, mild and gentlemanly, and I wondered
what he did there. The other walls were white-
washed, but the whitewash was dingy and stained.
Pinned on to them were pages of pictures from
Th£ Graphic or The Illustrated London News,

257

“ I put them up,** said Grosely, “ I thought they made
the place look homelike.*’

** What made you put up Galsworthy ? Do you read
his books,”

“ No, I didn’t know he wrote books. I liked his
face.”

There were one or two tom and shabby rattan mats on
the floor and in a comer a great pile of The Hong-Kong
Times. The only furniture consisted of a wash-hand
stand, two or three kitchen chairs, a table or two and a
large teak native bed. It was cheerless and sordid.

“ Not a bad little place, is it ? ” said Grosely. “Suits
me all right. Sometimes I’ve thought of moving, but I
don’t suppose I ever shall now,” He gave a little
chuckle. “ I came to Haiphong for forty-eight hours
and I’ve been here five years. I was on my way to
Shanghai really.”

He was silent. Having nothing to say I said nothing
Then the little Tonkinese woman made a remark to
him, which I could not of course understand, and he
answered her. He was silent again for a minute or
two, but I thought he looked at me as though he wanted
to ask me something. I did not know why he hesitated.

“ Have you ever tried smoking opium on your travels
in the East ? ” he inquired at last, casually.

“ Yes, I did once, at Singapore. I thought I’d like to
see what it was like.”

“ What happened ? ”

“ Nothing very thrilling to tell you the truth. I
thought I was going to have the most exquisite emotions.
I expected visions, like de Quincey’s, you know. The
only thing I felt was a kind of physical well-being, the

258

same sort of feeling that you get when youVe had a
Turkish bath and are lying in the cooling room, and then
a peculiar activity of mind so that everything I thought
of seemed extremely clear/’

“ I know/’

“ I really felt that two and two are four and there
could not be the smallest doubt about it. But next
morning — oh God ! My head reeled. I was as sick as a
dog, I was sick all day, I vomited my soul out, and as I
vomited I said to myself miserably : And there are
people who call this fun.”

Grosely leaned back in his chair and gave a low
mirthless laugh.

“ I expect it was bad stuff. Or you went at it too
hard. They saw you were a mug and gave you dregs
that had been smoked already. They’re enough to turn
anybody up. Would you like to have another try
now } I’ve got some stuff here that I know’s good.”

” No, I think once was enough for me.”

** D’you mind if I have a pipe or two ? You want it in
a climate like this. It keeps you from getting dysentery.
And I generally have a bit of a smoke about this
time.”

” Go ahead,” I said.

He spoke again to the woman and she, raising her
voice, called out something in a raucous tone. An
answer came from the room behind the wooden partition
and after a minute or two an old woman came out
carrying a little round tray. She was shrivelled and old
and when she entered gave me an ingratiating smile of
her stained mouth. Grosely got up and crossed over
to the bed and lay on it. The old woman set the tray

259

down on the bed ; on it was a spirit lamp, a pipe, a long
needle and a little round box of opium. She squatted
on the bed and Grosely*s wife got on it too and sat, her
feet tucked up under her, with her back against the
wall, Grosely watched the old woman while she put a
little pellet of the drug on the needle, held it over the
flame till it sizzled and then plugged it into the pipe.
She handed it to him and with a great breath he inhaled
it, he held the smoke for a little while and then blew
it out in a thick grey cloud. He handed her back the
pipe and she started to make another. Nobody spoke.
He smoked three pipes in succession and then sank
back,

“ By George, I feel better now. I was feeling all in.
She makes a wonderful pipe, this old hag. Are you
sure you won*t have one ? ”

“ Quite.’*

“ Please yourself. Have some tea then.”

He spoke to his wife who scrambled off the bed and
went out of the room. Presently she came back
with a little china pot of tea and a couple of Chinese
bowls.

** A lot of people smoke here, you know. It does
you no harm if you don’t do it to excess. I never
smoke more than twenty to twenty-five pipes a day.
You can go on for years if you limit yourself to that.
Some of the Frenchmen smoke as many as forty or
fifty a day. That’s too much. I never do that, except
now and then when I feel I want a binge. I’m bound
to say it’s never done me any harm.”

We drank our tea, pale and vaguely scented and
clean on the palate. Then the old woman made him

260

another pipe and then another. His wife had got
back on to the bed and soon curling herself up at
his feet went to sleep. Grosely smoked two or three
pipes at a time, and while he was smoking seemed
intent upon nothing else, but in the intervals he was
loquacious. Several times I suggested going, but
he would not let me. The hours wore on. Once
or twice while he smoked I dozed. He told me all
about himself. He went on and on. I spoke only to
give him a cue. I cannot relate what he told me in
his own words. He repeated himself. He was very
long-winded and he told me his story confusedly, first
a late bit, then an early bit, so that I had to arrange
the sequence for myself ; sometimes I saw that, afraid
he had said too much, he held something back ; some-
times he lied and I had to make a guess at the truth
from the smile he gave me or the look in his eyes.
He had not the words to describe what he had felt,
and I had to conjecture his meaning from slangy
metaphors and hackneyed, vulgar phrases. I kept on
asking myself what his real name was, it was on the tip
of my tongue and it irritated me not to be able to
recall it, though why it should in the least matter
to me I did not know. He was somewhat suspicious
of me at first and I saw that this escapade of his in
London and his imprisonment had been all these years
a tormenting secret. He had always been haunted
by the fear that sooner or later someone would find
out.

“ It's funny that even now you shouldn't remember
me at the hospital,” he said, looking at me shrewdly.
“ You must have a rotten memory.”

261

Hang it all, it’s nearly thirty years ago. Think
of the thousands of people Fve met since then. There’s
no reason why I should remember you any more than
you remember me.”

” That’s right. I don’t suppose there is.”

It seemed to reassure him. At last he had smoked
enough and the old woman made herself a pipe and
smoked it. Then she went over to the mat on which
the child was lying and huddled down beside it. She
lay so still that I supposed she had fallen directly asleep.
When at last I went I found my boy curled up on the
foot-board of the rickshaw in so deep a slumber that I
had to shake him. I knew where I was and I wanted
air and exercise, so I gave him a couple of piastres and
told him I would walk.

It was a strange story I carried away with me.

It was with a sort of horror that I had listened to
Grosely, telling me of those twenty years he had
spent in China. He had made money, I do not know
how much, but from the way he talked I should think
something between fifteen and twenty thousand
pounds, and for a tide-waiter it was a fortune. He
could not have come by it honestly, and little as I knew
of the details of his trade, by his sudden reticences,
by his leers and hints I guessed that there was no base
transaction that, if it was made worth his while, he
jibbed at. I suppose that nothing paid him better
than smuggling opium, and his position gave him the
opportunity to do this with safety and profit. I under-
stood that his superior officers had often had their
suspicions of him, but had never been able to get such
proof of his malpractires as to justify them in taking

262

anj steps. They contented themselves with moving
him from one port to another, but that did not disturb
him ; they watched him, but he was too clever for
them. I saw that he was divided between the fear
of telling me too much to his discredit and the desire
to boast of his own astuteness. He prided himself on
the confidence the Chinese had placed in him.

“ They knew they could trust me,"' he said, “ and
it gave me a pull. I never double-crossed a Chinaman
once,”

The thought filled him with the complacency of the
honest man. The Chinese discovered that he was keen
on curios and they got in the habit of giving him bits
or bringing him things to buy ; he never made enquiries
how they had come by them and he bought them cheap.
When he had got a good lot he sent them to Peking
and sold them at a handsome profit. I remembered
how he had started his commercial career by buying
things at auctions and pawning them. For twenty
years by shabby shift and petty dishonesty he added
pound to pound, and everything he made he invested
in Shanghai. He lived penuriously, saving half his
pay ; he never went on leave because he did not want
to waste his money, he would not have anything to
do with the Chinese women, he wanted to keep himself
free from any entanglement ; he did not drink. He
was consumed by one ambition, to save enough to be
able to go back to England and live the life from which
he had been snatched as a boy. That was the only
thing he wanted. He lived in China as though in a
dream ; he paid no attention to the life around him ;
its colour and strangeness, its possibilities of pleasure,

26S

meant nothing to him. There was always before him
the mirage of London, the Criterion Bar, himself
standing with his foot on the rail, the promenade at
the Empire and the Pavilion, the picked-up harlot,
the serio-comic at the music hall and the musical
comedy at the Gaiety. This was life and love and
adventure. This was romance. This was what he
yearned for with all his heart. There was surely
something impressive in the way in which during all
those years he had lived like an anchorite with that
one end in view of leading again a life that was so
vulgar. It showed character.

You see,” he said to me, ” even if I’d been able
to get back to England on leave I wouldn't have gone.
I didn’t want to go till I could go for good. And then
I wanted to do the thing in style.”

He saw himself putting on evening clothes every
night and going out with a gardenia in his button-
hole, and he saw himself going to the Derby in a long
coat and a brown hat and a pair of opera glasses slung
over his shoulder. He saw himself giving the girls a
look over and picking out the one he fancied. He
made up his mind that on the night he arrived in
London he would get blind, he hadn’t been drunk for
twenty years ; he couldn’t afford to in his job, you had
to keep your wits about you. He’d take care not to
get drunk on the ship on the way home. He’d wait
till he got to London. What a night he’d have 1 He
thought of it for twenty years.

I do not know why Grosely left the Chinese customs,
whether the place was getting too hot for him, whether
he had reached the end of his service or whether he

S

had amassed the sum he had fixed. But at last he
sailed. He went second class ; he did not intend to
start spending money till he reached London. He
took rooms in Jermyn Street, he had always wanted
to live there, and he went straight to a tailor’s and
ordered himself an outfit. Slap up. Then he had a
look round the town. It was different from how he
remembered it, there was much more traffic and he
felt confused and a little at sea. He went to the
Criterion and found there was no longer a bar where
he had been used to lounge and drink. There was a
restaurant in Leicester Square where he had been in
the habit of dining when he was in funds, but he could
not find it ; he supposed it had been torn down. He
went to the Pavilion, but there were no women there ;
he was rather disgusted and went on to the Empire,
he found they had done away with the Promenade.
It was rather a blow. He could not quite make it out.
Well, anyhow, he must be prepared for changes in
twenty years, and if he couldn’t do anything else he
could get drunk. He had had fever several times in
China and the change of climate had brought it on
again, he wasn’t feeling any too well, and after four
or five drinks he was glad to go to bed.

That first day was only a sample of many that
followed it. Everything went wrong. Grosely’s voice
grew peevish and bitter as he told me how one thing
and another had failed him. The old places were gone,
the people were different, he found it hard to make
fiiends, he was strangely lonely ; he had never expected
that in a great city like London. That’s what was
wrong with it, London had become too big, it wasn’t

265

the jolly, intimate place it had been in the early
nineties. It had gone to pieces. He picked up a few
girls, but they weren't as nice as the girls he had known
before, they weren't the fun they used to be, and he
grew dimly conscious that they thought him a rum
sort of cove. He was only just over forty and they
looked upon him as an old man. When he tried to
cotton on to a lot of young fellows standing round a
bar they gave him the cold shoulder. Anyway, these
young fellows didn't know how to drink. He'd show
them. He got soused every night, it was the only
thing to do in that damned place, but, by Jove, it made
him feel rotten next day. He supposed it was the
climate of China. When he was a medical student
he could drink a bottle of whisky every night and be
as fresh as a daisy in the morning. He began to think
more about China. All sorts of things that he never
knew he had noticed came back to him. It wasn't a
bad life he'd led there. Perhaps he'd been a fool to
keep away from those Chinese girls, they were pretty
little things some of them, and they didn't put on the
airs these English girls did. One could have a damned
good time in China if one had the money he had. One
could keep a Chinese girl and get into the club, and
there *d be a lot of nice fellows to drink with and play
bridge with and billiards. He remembered the Chinese
shops and all the row in the streets and the coolies
carrying loads and the ports with the junks in them
and the rivers with pagodas on the banks. It was
funny, he never thought much of China while he was
there and now — ^well, he couldn't get it out of his
mind. It obsessed him. He began to think that

266

London was no place for a white man. It had just
gone to the dogs, that was the long and short of it, and
one day the thought came to him that perhaps it would
be a good thing if he went back to China. Of course
it was silly, he’d worked like a slave for twenty years
to be able to have a good time in London, and it was
absurd to go and live in China. With his money he
ought to be able to have a good time anywhere. But
somehow he couldn’t think of anything else but China.
One day he went to the pictures and saw a scene at
Shanghai. That settled it. He was fed up with
London. He hated it. He was going to get out and
this time he’d get out for good. He had been home
a year and a half, and it seemed longer to him than
all his twenty years in the East. He took a passage
on a French boat sailing from Marseilles, and when
he saw the coast of Europe sink into the sea he heaved
a great sigh of relief. When they got to Suez and he
felt the first touch of the East he knew he had done
the right thing. Europe was finished. The East was
the only place.

He went ashore at Djibouti and again at Colombo
and Singapore, but though the ship stopped for two
days at Saigon he remained on board there. He’d been
drinking a good deal and he was feeling a bit under
the weather. But when they reached Haiphong, where
they were staying for forty-eight hours, he thought
he might just as well have a look at it. That
was the last stopping-place before they got to China.
He was bound for Shanghai. When he got there he
meant to go to a hotel and look around a bit and then
get hold of a girl and a place of his own. He would

267

buy a pony or two and race. He'd soon make friends.
In the East they weren't so stiff and standoffish as they
were in London. Going ashore, he dined at the hotel
and after dinner got into a rickshaw and told the boy
he wanted a woman. The boy took him to the shabby
tenement in which I had sat for so many hours and
there were the old woman and the girl who was now
the mother of his child. After a while the old woman
asked him if he wouldn't like to smoke. He had never
tried opium, he had always been frightened of it, but
now he didn't see why he shouldn't have a go. He was
feeling good that night and the girl was a jolly cuddle-
some little thing ; she was rather like a Chinese girl,
small and pretty, like an idol. Well, he had a pipe
or two, and he began to feel very happy and comfortable.
He stayed all night. He didn’t sleep. He just lay,
feeling very restful, and thought about things.

“ I stopped there till my ship went on to Hong-
Kong,” he said. “ And when she left I just stopped
on.”

” How about your luggage ? ” I asked.

For I am perhaps unworthily interested in the manner
people combine practical details with the ideal aspects
of life. When in a novel penniless lovers drive in a
long, swift racing car over the distant hills I have
always a desire to know how they managed to pay
for it ; and I have often asked myself how the
characters of Henry James in the intervals of subtly
examining their situation coped with the physiological
necessities of their bodies,

” I only had a trunk full of clothes, I was never one
to want much more than I stood up in, and I went

268

down with the girl in a rickshaw to fetch it. I only
meant to stay on till the next boat came through. You
see, I was so near China here I thought Td wait a bit
and get used to things if you understand what I mean,
before I went on.”

I did. Those last words of his revealed him to me.
I knew that on the threshold of China his courage had
failed him. England had been such a terrible dis-
appointment that now he was afraid to put China to
the test too. If that failed him he had nothing. For
years England had been like a mirage in the desert.
But when he had yielded to the attraction, those
shining pools and the palm-trees and the green grass
were nothing but the rolling sandy dunes. He had
China, and so long as he never saw it again he kept it.

“ Somehow I stayed on. You know, you’d be sur-
prised how quickly the days pass. I don’t seem to
have time to do half the things I want to. After all
I’m comfortable here. The old woman makes a
damned good pipe, and she’s a jolly little girl, my girl,
and then there’s the kid. A lively young beggar. If
you’re happy somewhere what’s the good of going
somewhere else ? ”

** And are you happy here ? ” I asked him.

I looked round that large bare sordid room. There
was no comfort in it and not one of the little personal
things that one would have thought might have given
him the feeUng of home, Grosely had taken on this
equivocal little apartment, which served as a house
of assignation and as a place for Europeans to smoke
opium in, with the old woman who kept it, just as it
was, and he camped, rather than lived, there still as

269

though next day he would pack his traps and go , After
a little while he answered my question.

** I Ve never been so happy in my life. I often think
I’ll go on to Shanghai some day, but I don’t suppose
I ever shall. And God knows, I never want to see
England again.”

Aren’t you awfully lonely sometimes for people to
talk to ? ”

** No. Sometimes a Chinese tramp comes in with
an English skipper or a Scotch engineer, and then I
go on board and we have a talk about old times.
There’s an old fellow here, a Frenchman who was in
the customs, and he speaks English ; I go and see him
sometimes- But the fact is I don’t want anybody
very much. I think a lot. It gets on my nerves when
people come between me and my thoughts. I’m not
a big smoker, you know, I just have a pipe or two in
the morning to settle my stomach, but I don’t really
smoke till night. Then I think.”

What d’you think about ? ”

“ Oh, all sorts of things- Sometimes about London
and what it was like when I was a boy. But mostly
about China. I think of the good times I had and the
way I made my money, and I remember the fellows
I used to know, and the Chinese. I had some narrow
squeaks now and then, but I always came through all
right. And I wonder what the girls would have been
like that I might have had. Pretty little things. I'm
sorry now I didn’t keep one or two. It's a great
country, China ; I love those shops, with an old fellow
sitting on his heels smoking a water-pipe, and all the
shop-signs. And the temples. By George, that’s the

place for a man to live in. There’s life.”

The mirage shone before his eyes. The illusion held
him. He was happy. I wondered what would be his
end. Well, that was not yet. For the first time in
his life perhaps he held the present in his hand.

XLIV

I TOOK a shabby little steamer from Haiphong to
Hong-Kong, which ran along the coast stopping
at various French ports on the way to take on
and discharge cargo. It was very old and dirty. There
were but three passengers beside myself. Two were
French missionaries bound for the island of Hainan.
One was an elderly man with a large square grey beard
and the other was young, with a round red face on
which his beard grew in little black patches. They
spent most of the day reading their breviaries and the
younger one studied Chinese. Then there was an
American Jew called Elfenbein who was travelling in
hosiery. He was a tall fellow, powerfully built and
strong, clumsy of gesture, with a long sallow face,
a big straight nose and dark eyes. His voice was loud
and strident. He was aggressive and irascible. He
abused the ship, he abused the steward, he abused the
boys, he abused the food. Nothing satisfied him. All
the time you heard his voice raised in anger because
his boxes of show goods were not placed as they should
be, because he couldn’t get a hot bath, because the
soda water wasn’t cold enough. He was a man with
a chip on his shoulder. Everyone seemed in a con-
spiracy to slight or injure him and he kept threatening
to give the captain or the steward a hit on the nose.
Because I was the only person on board who spoke

272

English he attached himself to me and I could not
settle down on deck for five minutes without his coming
to sit by me and telling me his latest grievance. He
forced drinks on me which I did not want, and when I
refused, cried : Oh, come on, be a sport, and ordered
them notwithstanding. To my confusion he addressed
me constantly as brother. He was odious, but I must
admit that he was often amusing ; he would tell
damaging stories about his fellow Jews in a racy idiom
that made them very entertaining. He talked inter-
minably. He hated to be alone for a minute and it
never occurred to him that you might not want his
company ; but when he was with you he was perpetually
on the look out for affronts. He trod heavily on your
corns and if you tucked your feet out of the way thought
you insulted him. It made his society excessively
fatiguing. He was the kind of Jew who made you
understand the pogrom. I told him a little story about
the peace conference. It appears that on one occasion
Monsieur Paderewski was pressing upon Mr. Wilson,
Mr. Lloyd George and Monsieur Clemenceau the
Polish claims on Danzig.

“ If the Poles do not get it,’* he said, “ I warn you
that their disappointment will be so great, there will
be an outbreak and they will assassinate the Jews.”

Mr. Wilson looked grave, Mr. Lloyd George shook
his head and M. Clemenceau frowned.

But what will happen if the Poles get Danzig ? ”
asked Mr. Wilson.

M. Paderewski brightened. He shook his leonine
mane.

“ Ah, that will be quite another thing,” he replied.

27S

Their enthusiasm will be so great there, will be an
outbreak and they will assassinate the Jews.”

Elfenbein saw nothing funny in it.

“ Europe^s no good,” he said. “ If I had my way
I'd sink the whole of Europe under the sea.”

Then I told him about Henri Deplis. He was by
birth a native of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. On
maturer reflection he became a commercial traveller.
This did not amuse him either, so with a sigh for Said's
sake I desisted. We must accept with resignation the
opinion of the hundred per cent American that the
English have no sense of humour.

At meal times the captain sat at the head of the
table, and two priests on one side of him and Elfenbein
and I on the other.

The captain, a jovial little grey-headed man from
Bordeaux, was retiring at the end of the year to make
his own wine in his own vineyard.

Je vous enverrai unfUt, mon pere” he promised the
elderly priest.

Elfenbein spoke fluent and bad French. He seized
the conversation and held it. Pep, that's what he'd
got. The Frenchmen were polite to him, but it
was not hard to see that they heartily disliked him.
Many of his remarks were singularly tactless, and when
he used obscene language in addressing the boy who
was serving us, the priests looked down their noses
and pretended not to hear. But Elfenbein was argu-
mentative, and at one luncheon began to talk of religion.
He made a number of observations upon the Calhohc
faith which were certainly not in good taste. The
younger priest flushed and was about to make some

274

observation, when the elder said something to him in
an undertone and he held his tongue. But when
Elfenbein addressed a direct question to him the old
man answered him mildly.

“ There is no compulsion in these matters. Everyone
is at liberty to believe what he pleases.*’

Elfenbein made a long tirade, but it was received in
silence. He was not abashed. He told me afterwards
that they couldn’t answer his arguments.

“ I don’t think they chose to,” I said. ” I imagine
they merely thought you a very rude, vulgar and ill-
mannered fellow.”

” Me ? ” he cried in astonishment.

** They are perfectly inoffensive and they have
devoted their lives to what they think is the service of
God, why should you gratuitously insult them ? ”

** I wasn’t insultin’ them. I was only puttin’ my
point of view as a rational man. I wanted to start an
argument. D’you think I’ve hurt their feelings ?
Why, I wouldn’t do that for the world, brother.”

His surprise was so ingenuous that I laughed.

” You’ve sneered at what they look upon as most
holy. They probably think you’re a very ignorant and
uneducated man ; otherwise I fancy they’d think you
were trying deliberately to insult them.”

His face fell. I really think he was under the im-
pression that he had been pleasantly facetious. He
looked at the old priest who was sitting in a corner
reading his breviary and went up to him.

“ Father, my friend here says I hurt your feelings by
what I said. I hadn’t any wish to do no such thing.

I beg you to pardon me if I said anythin’ to offend you.”

275

The priest looked up and smiled.

** Do not mention it, monsieur, it was of no conse-
quence.*’

I guess I must make up somehow, father, and
if you’ll allow me I’d like to make a contribution to
your fund for the poor. I’ve got a lot of piastres that
I didn’t have time to change at Haiphong and if you’ll
accept them you’ll be doin’ me a favour.”

Before the priest could answer he had pulled out of
his trouser pocket a wad of notes and a handful of silver
and put them down on the table.

“ But that is very kind of you,” said the priest.

This is a large sum.”

” Take it, it’s no good to me, I should only lose on
the exchange if I turned it into real money at Hong-
Kong. You’ll do me a favour by takin’ it.”

It was really a considerable amount and the priest
looked at it with some embarrassment.

“ Our mission is very poor. We shall be extremely
grateful. I hardly know how to thank you. I don’t
know what I can do.”

“ Well, I’m an atheist, father, but if you like to
remember me in your prayers next time you say them
I guess it won’t harm me any an’ if you’d add the
name of my mother Rachel Obermeyer Kahanski I
reckon we’d be about even-stephen.”

Elfenbein lumbered back to the table at the end of
which I was sitting, drinking a glass of brandy with my
eoifee.

” I made it all right with him. Least I could do,
wasn’t it ? Listen, brother, I’ve got quite an assort-
ment of men’s garters in one of my trunks. You come

along down to my stateroom and I’ll give you a dozen
pairs.”

His round took him from Batavia to Yokohama and
he had been travelling now for one firm now for another
for twenty years.

“ Tell me,” I said now, “ you must have known an
awful lot of people, what opinion have you formed of
the human race ? ”

“ ’Sure I’ll tell you. I think they’re bully. You’d
be surprised at the kindness I’ve received from every-
body. If you’re ill or anythin’ like that, perfect
strangers will nurse you like your own mother. White,
yellow, or brown they’re all alike. It’s surprisin’ what
they’ll do for you. But they’re stupid, they’re terribly
stupid. They’ve got no more brains than a turnip.
They can’t even tell you the way in their own home
town. I’ll give you my opinion of the human race in
a nutshell, brother ; their heart’s in the right place,
but their head’s a thoroughly inefficient organ.”

This really is the end of this book.